By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS, March 6 (Reuters) – Five people will stand trial in Lithuania for their suspected role in a case involving a series of exploding parcels in Europe in 2024, facing up to 10 years in prison if found guilty, the country’s deputy general prosecutor said on Friday.
Lithuanian investigators have said the packages, carried by freight groups DHL and DPD, detonated in Germany, Britain and Poland as part of a Russian military intelligence plot seeking to trigger explosions on cargo flights to the United States.
The five suspects were citizens of Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania and were being accused of terrorism, Lithuania’s Deputy General Prosecutor Arturas Urbelis told a press conference.
It was not immediately clear how the suspects pleaded to the charges, and a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
Russia’s defence ministry, in charge of military intelligence, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moscow has previously denied accusations of targeting Western nations, often describing them as examples of Russophobia.
Governments and intelligence agencies in Europe have previously pointed to Moscow as the likely source of a series of fires and acts of sabotage aimed at destabilising allies of Ukraine.
Lithuania last year said four parcels with “self-made, explosive-incendiary charges” had been mailed from Vilnius on July 19, 2024.
“The crimes were organised and curated by Russian citizens connected with Russian military intelligence agencies,” Saulius Briginas, deputy head of Lithuania’s Criminal Police Bureau, said on Friday.
One of the parcels, shipped with DHL, caught fire at Leipzig airport in eastern Germany, shortly before it was due to be loaded onto a DHL plane bound for Britain, Lithuania said.
A second parcel exploded on a DPD truck as it was crossing Poland, while the third detonated in a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, England.
The fourth parcel, which was also being transported on a DPD truck in Poland, failed to ignite due to a malfunction, investigators said. No one was injured in the incidents.
(Reporting by Andirus Sytas, writing by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik and Sharon Singleton)
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