LRT English Newsletter – May 15, 2026.
Lithuania's Financial Crime Investigation Service raided the parliamentary offices, party headquarters, and private home of Nemunas Dawn leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis on Thursday morning, seizing phones, computers, and boxes of documents. His colleague and fellow MP Daiva Petkevičienė was also searched.
The investigation, underway since March, focuses on potential fraud – specifically whether Žemaitaitis and Petkevičienė committed a crime by leasing their personal vehicles to the party. No charges have yet been filed.
The case has a history. The Central Electoral Commission already ruled in March that the party had misused state funds and could not document nearly 50,000 euros in expenses, stripping Nemunas Dawn of its 241,800-euro state grant for the period and ordering the two MPs to personally repay tens of thousands of euros. The party is appealing that decision in court.
Žemaitaitis, emerging from his home after the early-morning raid, was characteristically unbothered – telling reporters the officers found nothing, and that nothing will come of their searches. President Gitanas Nausėda was considerably less relaxed, describing Nemunas Dawn as a party that is, in his words, a perpetual conveyor belt of scandals and legal cases. Nemunas Dawn is a member of the Social Democrat-led governing coalition, whose partners have called for the situation to be discussed internally.
