Chicago court weighs case of ex-Lithuanian lawmaker

Oral arguments at a federal appeals court in Chicago over a request by a former Lithuanian lawmaker to halt her extradition to her homeland focused largely on whether an anti-pedophilia movement she launched in Lithuania early this decade qualified as a major rebellion.

Neringa Venckiene, 47 and jailed in Chicago, faces charges in Lithuania that include submitting false reports regarding her allegations a ring of influential pedophiles in Lithuania victimized her 4-yearold niece. Venckiene fled to the U.S. in 2013 as Lithuanian prosecutors prepared charges against her.

If she is extradited, she has said those she angered with her allegations would try to kill her.

“The defendant led a rebellion against the Lithuanian government,” her attorney, Barry Spevack, told a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday. By pursuing charges against her, he said, they wanted to “cut off the head of the insurrection.”

The emphasis on political turmoil is a long-shot bid to convince the appeals court that Venckiene qualifies for strictly defined legal provisions that bar extraditions from the United States if the alleged crimes stemmed from significant political upheaval.

Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Clow told the panel Tuesday that it was a stretch to say some protests by Venckiene supporters constituted a fullblown rebellion or insurrection.

One of the panel judges, David Hamilton, also sounded skeptical of the defense reasoning, asking how a country that has been as outwardly stable and peaceful as Lithuania could be said to have been in political turmoil. He also asked why a U.S. court should intervene when the State Department already gave the green light to Venckiene’s extradition.