Other events in Baltic States

Upon the decree signed by President Dalia Grybauskaite, Lt Col Gediminas Grina was appointed Head of the State Security Department (VSD). He will assume his office as of April 12, informed BC presidential press service.

The Seimas approved Gediminas Grina's candidature for the head of VSD on April 1.

Such a resolution was favoured by 127 MPs, no MPs voted against or abstained from the voting. All the Seimas parliamentary groups supported the future VSD head. But most of all, the parliamentarians wished him to withstand political pressure and be less visible in television screen and newspapers' pages.

According to Grina, the new position is a great personal challenge for him. The future VSD head expected a constructive cooperation with the Seimas and the Government.

"On one hand, I am glad, because it is a complete different type of work, because I am leaving the national defence service. There it was more a military structure, here – more civilian," Gediminas Grina told the journalists. Under the Constitution, the VSD head is appointed by the president upon the approval of the Seimas.

The candidate for the new head of the State Security Department presently acts as the head of the Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of National Defence.

Prior to starting his work in the Second Investigation Department of the National Defence Ministry, Grina served as military attache in Lithuanian Embassy in the United States (2000-2004).

The State Security Department remained without its head in October last year, when Povilas Malakauskas resigned from his office. Romualdas Vaisnoras was appointed to act as interim head of VSD.