MINSK. July 18 (Interfax) - Lithuanian intelligence agencies recruited a retired Belarusian military serviceman in an attempt to arrange an integrated channel for obtaining information on the Belarusian air defense system and its Air Force, Artur Strekh, a spokesman for the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB), told Interfax on Tuesday.
"KGB operatives detained Lithuanian military intelligence chief of station Mr. 'F' red-handed during a secret action. People comprising his agent network were also detained in the process of passing secret information to a foreign special service," Strekh said.
The former Belarusian serviceman left for Lithuania in 2002 and settled there permanently. He had residence permit and was living outside Vilnius along with his family, he said.
"He received an assignment from the Lithuanian military intelligence service to set up an agent network in Belarus to collect information on the functioning of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces," he said.
"We can say that, to help put his criminal design into practice, Lithuanian special services provided him, as the chief of station, with financial support in launching a commercial project on our territory," he said.
"All stages of what this man and his agents did have been fully documented," Strekh said.
The criminal case will be forwarded to courts upon the completion of the investigation, he said.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry earlier described as insinuations the Belarusian KGB's reports on the detention of the chief of the Lithuanian military intelligence service's station in Belarus, saying that the information on this account posted on the KGB's official website was untrue and harming bilateral relations.