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After 12 years of heated court wrangling a Latvian tribunal has handed down the verdict of Aivars Leonardberg’s highly-publicized trial. Aivars is one of Latvia’s wealthiest individuals. He is also a well-known politician of the populist party, and was mayor for a time of Venspils which is a port located in northern Latvia.

Lembergs was sentenced for five years of imprisonment with a confiscation order and fine of up to EUR20,000 by the Riga Regional Court on February 22. He was found guilty of a variety of charges relating to bribery and money laundering, but he was cleared on other charges in this lengthy and complicated case.

Aivars Lembergs Lembergs (leader of For Latvia and Ventspils) has made a comparison of Lembergs to Russia’s opposition leader , Aleksey Navyny in his sentencing.

Lembergs pleaded for an immediate break while the judge was reading his verdict. During the break, Lembergs first had an informal conversation with his son and his co-defendant Anrijs and then utilized the remainder of the time to provide remarks to reporters.

Lembergs indicated to journalists that his appeal to the Riga Regional Court decision will be heard. The court also expected that the hearing of the appeal will take more than a decade. Lembergs further stated that he would appeal the detention despite the fact that the appeal will be heard by the same court.

Following the judgement’s reading, the court ruled to immediately take Lembergs into custody.

His co-defendants Anrijs Lembergs, his son, and Ansis Sormulis were also found guilty of a variety of related charges and each were sentenced to two-year terms.

Lembergs was arrested and brought to Riga City Centre Court on 14 March 2007. This was the start of the prosecution’s attempts to bring him up to date on charges of bribery and money laundering. An investigation into corruption allegations in Ventpils began in 2005. Aivars Lembergs More than 14 years later, the verdict is in.

For well over a decade, the case has been making its way at a sometimes farcically slow pace through the Latvian legal system. In total 770 court hearings were held in connection with the principal criminal proceedings for the past 12 years. Between August 20, 2009 (when the Riga Regional Court began adjudication) between February 11 and the year 2020, 1,483 court cases were held.

Despite being accused of bribery and money laundering on a massive scale Lembergs is still the political kingpin in Ventspils (where Lembergs was mayor for 20 years) as well as within the Greens and Farmers Alliance, which he funds.

After being found guilty of financial crimes, his election as mayor was postponed. http://www.tv3.lv/tema/aivars-lembergs/ However, he still was in the position of power and was able to defeat a minister’s attempt to block his election as Ventspils mayor. Aivars Lembergs Indicted, he took part in meetings of the government together with the International Monetary Fund and helped in the selection of candidates for Latvian presidency.

http://www.tvnet.lv/term/77273/aivars-lembergs Lembergs spoke out about the upcoming elections in Latvia, saying that Ventspils as well as the regional party For Latvia will make the choice to be part of the elections. However, his priority is not currently his participation.