OFF THE WIRE

FINAL SUSPECT: Lithuanian rapid reaction squad Aras successfully stormed an apartment in the evening of Jan. 8 in the northern Lithuanian city of Panevezys and detained Andrius Andriusaitis, a suspect in the kidnap and murder case of the former head of the Lithuanian oil processing plant Mazeikiu Nafta, Gediminas Kiesus, his son and driver. The three men were kidnapped and murdered in July 2000. Lithuanian police commissioner general Vytautas Grigaravicius said Andriusaitis, 38, was the last suspect still at large. The police link the suspects to a Panevezys criminal gang calling themselves the Tulips. Kiesus, former director of Mazeikiu Nafta, the Lithuanian oil refining operation partially owned and wholly operated by U.S. oil company Williams since 1999, was kidnapped with his son and driver on July 6, 2001. Kiesus went to Vilnius to pick up his son from the airport; the three men were kidnapped on their way from Vilnius to Mazeikiai. Over 100,000 litas ($25,000) was taken from the bank accounts of Kiesus and his son following their kidnapping. The three men were murdered. Their remains were found in November, 20 kilometers from Panevezys. The police detained three suspects in the case, also residents of Panevezys, at the same time.

PARTY TEARS: A Lithuanian MP, representative of the Russian Union Vladimiras Orechovas, who celebrated the Orthodox New Year at his home on the night of Jan. 14, ended up being beaten and robbed. The lawmaker claims that $29,000 was stolen from him. Orechovas' neighbors said the MP was having quite a noisy party. After the guests left early next morning, Orechovas, a member of the parliamentary Social Democratic faction, called the police at about 5 a.m. He claimed that two strangers had broken into his house, beaten him and stolen his jacket, in the pocket of which Orechovas had some $29,000. According to officers, though the face of the lawmaker showed no signs of the attack he claimed to have fallen victim to, he will be examined by forensic medical experts. Signs of blood were found at the MP's cottage. Police claim not to have identified whose blood it is.

BABY BOOM: Lithuania's first baby from a frozen embryo was born in Kaunas Medical University's Gynecological Clinic this week, with the newborn's sex and parents' identities withheld for ethical reasons. The embryo was transferred to the mother in a fertility clinic in Vilnius in 2001. The clinic said that another new procedure of assisted reproduction was started in Lithuania last year, when embryos are planted into the future mother's uterus. The new procedure was performed on only four patients in the clinic last year. Specialists say that embryos intended for freezing develop from an ovule fertilized in a test tube. Doctors maintain that the "frozen embryo" method is becoming increasingly popular among couples unable to have babies because it does not require additional hormone treatment and saves time and money. In 2001, some 101 in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures were performed at the Vilnius clinic and led to 25 pregnancies. Another 50 procedures were performed in two more fertility clinics in Lithuania. Three centers in Estonia perform up to 420 fertilization procedures per year. Lithuanian Statistics Department data and epidemiological calculations suggest there are about 50,000 families unable to have babies in Lithuania, with the number growing by 2,000 every year. The first IVF baby was born in Britain in July 1978.

DEADLY COCKTAIL: Three people died and three are being treated in hospital after drinking an unknown liquid in the northern Lithuanian city of Siauliai last week. The dead include two males and one female. A 16-year-old juvenile is among those hospitalized. It's believed all of those apparently poisoned drank together in a garbage dump outside Siauliai. Some of the victims apparently lived beside the dump in tents. The Siauliai district prosecutor reported that one of the male victims discovered a five-liter plastic bottle at the garbage tip on Jan. 8. The prosecutor believes the man didn't bother to read the label on the bottle, but that it appeared to him to contain mineral water. The bottle discovered contained a yellowish brown liquid. The man drank from the bottle, passed it to friends and then poured what was left into another container and took it home with him to the village of Kairiai. That man has died. Police learned the patients felt ill after drinking the substance, vomited and found themselves unable to walk.

CAVE MAN DETAINED: Police in western Latvia detained a man who had been living in a self-made cave in a precipice by a river for the last couple of months, a newspaper reported. Diena said the man, aged 51, was recently released from confinement and made his living mainly by stealing products from nearby summer cottages, and was also using stolen clothes and blankets. The caveman, originally registered as a resident from Dobele, central Latvia, headed toward the western town of Kuldiga after release from confinement on the advice of a fellow jailbird who had praised the fine nature and good living conditions there, Kuldiga criminal police deputy chief Vineta Petrika said. The police traced the man following him after he robbed a house in Ventspils district. Initially he warmed his cave, made by the Venta River, by covering it with fir and pine needles. Later he dug down to an underground power cable and installed electricity in his bunker, doing it rather professionally, Kuldiga electric networks district controller told Diena. The caveman has previous convictions, the last of them involving a four-year jail term for theft.