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The decision on the case where defendants are deputy of Unity (Vienotība) party Ainars Latkovskis and head of LR State Revenue Service Financial Police Kaspars Cherneckis, will be proclaimed on Friday, June 19, 2015 9:55.

The plot of the case is the following. On October 30, 2013 KNAB published a press-release in which it was stated about the arrest of two officials of Customs Criminal Board on suspicion of bribery in amount of 4000 euro. At the same day president of Saeima Commission on Defence, Internal affairs and Corruption prevention, Unity party deputy, politician Ainars Latkovskis published the following entry on his twitter account: “There is information that Customs Criminal Board officials, caught by KNAB are Vashkevich’s people, who were continuing to fulfil his orders”.

On the next day deputy director general of State Revenue Service, director of Financial Police administration Kaspars Cerneckis answered questions of journalists of “Morning panorama” and actually confirmed Latkovskis’ expression by mentioning V.Vashkevich’s name again regarding KNAB press-release.

Former director of Customs Criminal Board Vladimir Vashkevich has no relation to mentioned arrest of officials. Obviously A.Latkovskis made his entry in Twitter with purpose to discredit the name of V.Vashkevich regarding the sensational event of October 2013; his expression was grounded only on the fact that 3.5 years before the event, involved persons were serving together in one organization with V.Vashkevich. Plaintiff believes that this groundless, unconfirmed with any facts expression contends violation of his honour and dignity via groundless mentioning of his name regarding the resonant event. Let us remind you that V.Vashkevich is not serving in Customs Criminal Board since March 2010.

As long as A.Latkovskis’ expression in Twitter is slanderous, in December 2013 an action was filed against Latkovskis and Cerneckis on recall of discrediting information, propagated by them and compensation of moral damage to V.Vashkevich on violation of his honour and dignity.

In their explanations on the action both Ainars Latkovskis and Kaspar Cerneckis stated that they had just expressed their opinions. Confirming his fantasies, Ainars Latkovskis stated that he meant not the KNAB press-release, but the verdict of Riga city Central region court as of July 15, 2013 on the case of former Customs employee Igor Semenov (already dead, that was publically known), which came into force and which he was informed about by actual head of Customs Criminal Board Talis Kravalis.

However, arguments of both defendants are not standing up to criticism. Representatives of Vladimir Vashkevich in their appeal presented evidences that this verdict of Riga city Central region court was never issued to Talis Kravalis or Ainar Latkovskis and stated that Latkovskis had no information about the verdict up to October 30, 2013. Representative of Vashkevich also stated that from the case materials it is clear that Latkovskis’ expression was connected only with KNAB press-release where there were no mentions of V.Vashkevich’s name. In any case, statement of A.Latkovskis in his Twitter account is discrediting as long as it is contrary to the verdict of Riga city Central region court and plot of KNAB criminal proceedings within the frames of which mentioned officials were arrested.