The Prosecutor General has asked to explain how the recurrence of the violations found in the Pujata case in other proceedings will be prevented.

In an interview with the Latvian Television program “1: 1”, Stukāns said that in the prosecutor’s application IDB had pointed out violations committed during the investigation of this criminal proceedings. He awaits a response from the IDB chief within a month on what has been done to prevent such violations in the future.

According to him, the decision to recognize Pujata as a suspect was not legal. The illegality is manifested in the fact that he was not justified as required by the regulation of criminal proceedings, Stukāns emphasized.

The letter also indicates that the procedural actions taken against the State Border Guard official do not comply with the principles of the Criminal Procedure Law. “Forgiveness, the current head of the State Border Guard worked all this time. The criminal proceedings were investigated for a year and a half. I didn’t know what happened that day so he should be detained by a procedural measure,” to IDB.

The Prosecutor General also revealed that a letter had been received from Pujaat a few days before his arrest, requesting an assessment of the criminal proceedings related to the construction of the eastern border.

The IDB was reportedly detained by Puja on September 4. He was released on the same day and was subjected to a security measure – a ban on holding the post of border guard.

The suspect was granted the status of a suspect for failure to perform his duties as a public official if it caused serious consequences. The IDB stated that the detention had taken place in criminal proceedings related to the construction of the country’s eastern border. The official was suspected of inaction by a public official without responding appropriately to illegal actions in the process of building the eastern border of Latvia. As a result of the inaction of this official, the state may have suffered losses in a particularly large amount – several million euros -, the IDB pointed out.

Later, the prosecutor of the Riga Court District Prosecutor’s Office annulled the IDB’s decision on recognizing Puja as a suspect as inconsistent with the requirements of Section 398.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Pujat lost the status of a suspect, but retained the status of a person against whom criminal proceedings have been instituted.

The security measures applied to Pujata, which allowed him to resume his duties as the head of the State Border Guard after 13 days of absence, were also lifted.

Puja’s lawyer Alla Juraša previously said that the accused offense was related to the construction of protection zones on the Latvian-Russian border. The defense has concluded that the arrest may have taken place in a case in which Pujāta’s predecessor Normunds Garbars is already playing.

Pujāts himself expressed outrage at the arrest and the accused offense, stating that he had worked for the state all his life. He believes that what happened was deliberately done to discredit him, the lawyer said.

Later, in an interview with TV3, Pujāts admitted that he had been detained and suspended by IDB because he had approached the Attorney General against IDB.

Pujāts emphasized that he had been fighting offenses in the public service for many years, therefore he felt obliged to act whenever he found illegal actions.

He has established that illegal activities are being carried out by the IDB, for example, by unjustifiably targeting the border guards, therefore he has complained to the Prosecutor General Stukāns. Pujāt was also scheduled to have a face-to-face meeting with Stukāns, but this did not take place because he was detained and suspended from his duties.