Actions of Lithuanian State Security Department, which closed Chechen separatists' website, were pronounced illegal

The Second District Court in Vilnius has found that the country's State Security Department did not have the authority to close the Kavkaz-Center website, which is operated by Chechen separatists, a court official reported it.

Sites disseminating undesirable information can be closed by a court, not the security service, the court ruled. The court quashed the administrative case against the Elneta company, in whose server the site had been located. It ordered the security service to reinstate the server to the company. This ruling can be appealed with the country's Chief Administrative Court within 10 days.

Kavkaz-Center was operated on the server of Microlink Data, a Lithuanian Internet company, from January to April 2003. It then moved to Estonia. In May it moved back to Lithuania, but the State Security Department closed it down once experts had determined that the site advocated terrorism and fomented ethnic hatred. Member of parliament Petras Grazulis then tried to install the site's server in his room in the parliamentary hotel, but failed to obtain permission to do so. The site's server is now installed in the apartment of Lithuanian Helsinki group leader and former dissident Viktoras Petkus.