PM calls for reform of VSD in the wake of CIA prison probe

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius on Tuesday called for sweeping reforms to Lithuania's spy agency after a report revealed that senior agents obscured their activities from the eyes of government.

The report released on Tuesday by a parliamentary inquiry found that Lithuania's Department of State Security, the VSD, "created the conditions" for a CIA detention facility to operate in Lithuania in 2004-2005.

"A small group of VSD officers took the decision to build this detention centre without informing society and, possibly, state leaders, and they circumvented parliamentary control," Andrius Kubilius said in a statement.

Kubilius said he was "alarmed" by the report's findings that laws had been broken, adding that the VSD had become a "state within a state."

The report recommended that three former senior VSD officers now face a criminal investigation by Lithuania's prosecutor general.

Kubilius said the USA remains a key strategic partner, but "a strategic partnership with the USA is not a justification for acting in ways that are essentially Soviet, ignoring civilian control of special services."