305. The jackels of Riga

Latvian journalist Lato Lapsa, who (if you follow the link) once resembled a red-headed Jack Nance from Eraserhead,  now wears more-becoming non-nonsense steely gray hair.  His name is more literary than most.  A Dogpile search for stories about him brings us Virgil:

bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro. Cui mater media sese ... aetheria quos lapsa plaga Iovis ales aperto. turbabat caelo; nunc terras ordine longo...

and Ovid:

neve sit errandum lato spatiantibus arvo, conveniant ad busta Nini lateantque sub umbra ... dumque fugit, tergo velamina lapsa reliquit. ut lea saeva sitim ...

Lapsa recently ignited a pretty spectacular judicial scandal in Latvia:

Journalist Lato Lapsa has unveiled a series of transcripts that are allegedly wiretapped phone conversations among prominent figures in Latvia’s judiciary system from 1998 to 2000. ... The tapes primarily concern conversations between high profile lawyer Andris Grutups and high ranking members of the judiciary. If they are found to be authentic, then the tapes could imply corruption in the political elite, business elite and the judiciary system as a whole.

That cautious report, carefully refraining from saying what is actually contained in the transcripts, is from the Baltic Times, which a day earlier had described the transcripts this way:

The transcripts date back several years and appear to originate in the office of leading lawyer Andris Grutups. They record conversations between Grutups and various members of the judiciary suggestive of a relationship that is more collusory than would generally be considered acceptable.

The Finnish Helsingin Sanomat is also circumspect in describing the recordings:

In the recordings, the lawyer and the judges engage in confidential discussions of the kind that violate rules of professional conduct. If the tapes prove genuine, they would call the impartiality of the system of justice into question.

 One judge whose voice was said to have been heard on a tape, has reportedly submitted his resignation.

Anyway, you get the general idea.  The Baltic Times reports that the country's prime minister responded in a classically Stalinist way, interpreting the revelations as a kind of treason:  "'This is an opportunity to destabilize the political situation in the country, to ruin trust in the prosecutor’s office and justice system. Obviously somebody is interested in such destabilization,' he said."  It just goes to show that you can take the Baltic nation out of the USSR but you can't take the USSR out of its politicians. 

But if the prime minister could have plausibly contended the tapes were fake, wouldn't he have chosen to spin the story that way instead?  The lawyer supposedly implicated also indirectly confirmed the authenticity of the transcripts, asking "if 'placing a phone call' was a crime."

Lapsa received the transcripts anonymously at the end of last year but held on to them until he could publish a book about their revelations.  Without knowing anything at all about either him or Latvian politics, his explanation for the delay is so true to small-state politics in the US that I believe him:

Lapsa told journalists that he published the transcripts in order to ensure public opinion would weigh in on the matter and that the case was thoroughly investigated. The aim of the book was “to raise enough public interest and awareness about the case, so as not to allow our dear investigation and law enforcement institutions to drown this case as has happened with other cases,” Lapsa said. The journalist said that he remembers a number of cases in which information had been sent to the prosecutor’s office, but the case was not launched and “died naturally.” He explained that these cases indicate that it is not enough – “not in this country, not at this time” – to simply send the information to the prosecutor’s office, and that public awareness about the case must be raised as well.

As an indication that his strategy might just possibly produce some results, we have this story from today's LETA:

Prosecutor General's Office has requested from Riga Regional Court information on civil suits reviewed between November 1, 1998 and April 1, 2000 by seven judges whose names possibly correspond to those mentioned in the new book "Tiesasanas ka kekis" ("The Court Case Kitchen"), released in Latvia last week.

(The Court Case Kitchen has a distinctly Babelfishy smell to it.  The Baltic Times goes with Cookhouse Legislation, which isn't any better.  The Court's Kitchen, maybe?  Or Cooking Up Cases?)