Lithuanian court rejects arrest appeals of Snoras bank owners Raimondas Baranauskas and Vladimir Antonov

In final and binding rulings, the court rejected appeals of Baranauskas' lawyer Irmantas Dobilas and Antonov's lawyer Gytis Kaminskas, stating that their arrest had been ordered without any violation of legal acts.

Baranauskas and Antonov had appealed against their arrest ordered by a court of lower instance on 1 June. The first arrest warrant was issued last November after Antonov and Baranauskas were suspected of having stolen LTL 987 million (EUR 281.4 million). The lawyers then also appealed but the court rejected the appeal in December. The court said then that factual information in the case proved that the former Snoras shareholders not only could but were in fact hiding from justice in the United Kingdom and were resisting extradition to Lithuania.

Lithuanian prosecutors doubled claims for ex-Snoras owners Vladimir Antonov and Baranauskas in May. The businessmen are alleged to have embezzled around LTL 1.7 billion, with prosecutors adding this amount will not change any more.

Already a third European arrest warrant was issued for Antonov and Baranauskas in May, and the court sanctioned arrest based on the warrant.

At the request of Snoras' administrator, a UK court has granted an injunction freezing up to EUR 492 million worth of Antonov's assets.

The Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office on 14 November 2011 opened an investigation into alleged false accounting, document forgery, abuse, embezzlement, and money laundering at Snoras.

Shortly afterwards, suspicions of large-scale embezzlement and document forgery were brought against Antonov and Baranauskas, Snoras' former president and shareholder. Baranauskas is also suspected of fraudulent bookkeeping and abuse of official position. Both suspects are now in London.

Their extradition case was opened in London in late November 2011 after Lithuania's authorities issued a European arrest warrant.

In mid-May, the Westminster Magistrate's Court in London decided to postpone the hearing of the case until July.

According to Lithuanian media reports, the bankers' arrest might be disputed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.