"The team of investigators have, over the past two years, collected enough data to expand the probe to 81 persons," the Prosecutor General's Office said on Friday.
The potential suspects include individuals who held leading positions at the Soviet Lithuania's Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry, and State Security Committee in 1991 and were involved in the armed attacks and seizure of strategic objects in January 1991, as well as their assistants.
According to the press release, the team is now completing procedural data collection and are drafting notifications of suspicions.
"As soon as the wording of notifications of suspicions is prepared, the prosecutors will turn to a pre-trial judge with a request to find the foreign citizens involved in the events and carry out other actions necessary for the completion of the pre-trial investigation," prosecutors said.
The case currently consists of about 700 volumes of materials.
The investigation foruces on treatment of people that is banned by the international law and war crimes – killings, injury of persons protected by the international humanitarian law, prohibited military attack of civilians, and use of prohibited military means.
According to the press release, prosecutors examined international legal acts, analyzed the international judicial practice and the Soviet Union's legal acts in order to assess the deeds of Soviet troops and other individuals who were involved in the attack and capture of the Press House, the Radio and Television, the Radio and Television Center in January 1991 .
In the framework of the investigation, prosecutors sent out 18 requests for legal assistance to foreign countries, received answers to ten of the requests, analyzed a few thousand video documents, interrogated more than 200 witnesses, and performed additional examination of the premises and territories of the Radio and Television and the Radio and Television Center.
In the end of December, Lithuanian prosecutors said they had finished a pre-trial investigation into 1991 crimes of former Vilnius OMON commanders and handed it over to court for them to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in absentia. The individuals reside in Russia, which has refused to extradite them.
Some 14 people were killed during an attempt by the Soviet army and special forces to take over Vilnius TV Tower on January 13, 1991, and more than 1,000 unarmed civilians were injured. Seven police and customs officers who guarded the border of Lithuania, then unrecognized by the Soviet Union, were killed at Medininkai border checkpoint in July of the same year.
Case to be finished this year
Lithuania's Prosecutor General's Office hopes to finish the investigation into criminal acts during the January 13 events this year and inform Russia and Belarus about war crime suspects residing in their countries.
"I have to say that this investigation is coming to an end. At the moment, the investigation focuses on 81 persons who are hiding in foreign countries, including Russia, Belarus, and elsewhere," prosecutor Simonas Slapšinskas told a press conference on Friday.
The final report on suspicions brought is expected to be finished in February-March. It will consist of over 100 pages.
Asked whether former Soviet President Michail Gorbachev was among the suspects, the prosecutor said that "there is no legal basis to talk about Gorbachev's responsibility."
