Lithuanian court rejects spy Danelius's complaint about not being exchanged for prisoners from Belarus
A Lithuanian court rejected the complaint of Mantas Danelius, convicted of espionage for Belarus, who requested to organize his exchange for Lithuanian citizens held in Belarusian prisons.
Mantas Danelius. Photo from his Facebook
In May last year, Danelius appealed to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda with a request to initiate his exchange for Lithuanian citizens imprisoned in Belarus. The President's Chancellery only responded that they had reviewed Danelius's appeals.
In his complaint, Danelius demanded the cancellation of the Lithuanian President's Chancellery's response and compensation of 100,000 euros for moral damages. The court, however, found that the Chancellery's letter was merely informational and had no legal consequences, so it could not be cancelled.
Furthermore, the court noted that neither the presidential chancellery nor administrative courts have the authority to initiate prisoner exchanges — this can only be decided by the President within his powers.
As a result, all of Danelius's demands were rejected.
Danelius was an ordinary informant who, from July 2022 to February 2023, served the interests of Belarusian propagandist Ksenia Lebedeva, closely connected with the special services.
Exploiting the trust of the Belarusian diaspora in Vilnius, he infiltrated opposition organizations, collected information about their funding, projects, and personal data of activists, thus posing a direct threat to people who had fled terror. His most cynical operation was a meeting with a former volunteer of the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment: Danelius convinced the fighter that he was acting in the interests of the US Embassy, secretly recorded the conversation, and sent it to Minsk. In May 2025, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal concluded his case, upholding the nine-year prison sentence.