The appeal of former President of the Bank of Latvia Ilmārs Rimševics against the verdict of the first instance court, which sentenced him to 350 hours of community service for acquiring a forged Covid-19 vaccination certificate, is scheduled to continue on January 14 at 10:00, according to the court hearing calendar, reports LETA.
Rimševics has been charged with providing an unlawful benefit to a person with the aim of obtaining a Covid-19 certificate without actual vaccination, as well as using a forged document.
According to the indictment, he transferred 400 euros through an intermediary to a person authorized to conduct state-funded vaccinations and document the fact of vaccination, so that they could perform actions that allowed for the entry of data into the e-veselība (e-health) system, based on which a digital Covid-19 certificate could be obtained.
As a result, false information was entered into the system stating that Rimševics had allegedly been vaccinated against Covid-19. Knowing that the certificate was fake, he nonetheless used it and moved freely during the spread of the infection.
As previously reported by the LTV program "De facto," the criminal case regarding the acquisition of the forged vaccination certificate also involves a medical professional, a teacher — a Covid skeptic, and the now-deceased head of the civil registry department.
Rimševics does not admit his guilt and claims that he was indeed vaccinated. According to his defense, this is confirmed by tests showing the presence of antibodies both after having contracted Covid-19 and after vaccination.
This case was separated from a larger criminal process involving a group of certificate traders — a doctor's assistant, her acquaintances, and several recipients of this service.
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