VILNIUS, June 14 - RAPSI. On Thursday Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius expressed his support of the court decision which found Algirdas Paleckis, the leader of the Socialist People's Front party, guilty of denying Soviet aggression against Lithuania and its citizens.

Paleckis was charged with "denying the Soviet occupation" after making provocative statements on the radio last February. In discussing the tragic event at the television tower in Vilnius on January 13, 1991, he said "brothers shot at brothers." The Lithuanian prosecutor's office demanded to place Paleckis on a one-year probation, but the court acquitted him.

The Vilnius District Court, in considering the appeal by the prosecutors office, ruled on Tuesday that Paleckis had been wrongly acquitted and charged him with a 3,000 euro fine.

"I believe that the decision of the Vilnius District Court is just. And the denial of Soviet aggression is clearly qualified as a crime in the Lithuanian legislation, just as the denial of Nazi crimes," Kubilius said on Thursday in an interview with the Ziniu radijas station.

The prosecutor had requested to find Paleckis guilty and sentence him to a one-year imprisonment with a two year delay in execution, but said that the prosecutors office is satisfied by the admission of guilt.

Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990. However, the Soviet Union called the move illegal and imposed an economic blockade on the country between April and late June 1990. In January 1991, a series of unauthorized protests swept across Lithuania, which resulted in special Soviet troops entering the republic. On the night of January 13, a convoy of Soviet armored vehicles entered the center of Vilnius.

The troops clashed with civilians at a local TV tower. Fourteen people were killed and over 600 were injured as a result of the bloodshed.

One Soviet paratrooper was killed by friendly fire.