The minister ignored Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius' call to wait two weeks for the Chief Official Ethics Commission's ruling on whether Jucevičius violated the law. On Wednesday, Jucevičius acknowledged he had signed a letter on his credibility for FCIS director. The parliament's Anti-Corruption Commission has taken the matter to the Chief Official Ethics Commission, which will discuss whether the plea should be accepted for discussion next week.
The parliamentary commission also said it had received data about Jucevičius' responsibility for 100 missing classified documents. Jucevičius has dismissed the information as misinterpretation, saying the documents were not missing but had differing labels in the registry.
Jucevičius has been heading the Financial Crimes Investigation Service since Monday after being appointed acting director before completion of competition procedures.
Before the appointment, Jucevičius headed FCIS Operational Activities Division. Last Friday, he won a competition to the director's position at the Financial Crimes Investigation Service. He was the only candidate.
On 15 February, Palaitis sacked previous FCIS director Vitalijus Gailius and his deputy Vytautas Giržadas following conclusions from the State Security Department about polygraph tests. The two officers had to take lie detector tests in information leak investigation.
The ruling conservatives criticized the sacking, saying Gailius had lost his post for the sole reason of refusing to obey the order of dismissing his deputy.
Competition for a new leader of the service was announced shortly after.
During a meeting last week, the Ministers Cabinet recommended that the Interior Ministry suspend the competition. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said the government's recommendation was unanimous. Palaitis then said that halting the competition would be a rational move, since it had been agreed to restructure the Financial Crimes Investigation Service. However, Liberal and Center Union that delegated him to the post said the following day that only a court could suspend the competition.
A Vilnius court has rejected Gailius' plea to apply temporary measures and suspend the competition. A court of higher instance has accepted his relevant complaint but will only hear it in a few weeks, on 3 April.
