Signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania Signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania The signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania were the twenty Lithuanian men who signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on February 16, 1918. The signatories were elected to the Council of Lithuania by the Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and entrusted with the mission of establishing an independent Lithuanian state. The proclaimed independence was established only in late 1918, after Germany lost World War I and its troops retreated from Lithuanian territory. What followed was a long process of building the state, determining its borders, and gaining international diplomatic
Capital punishment in Lithuania sentences. From March 1990 to December 1998, Lithuania executed seven men by shooting with a single firearm: When Lithuania declared independence in February 1918, it inherited the 1903 criminal code of the Russian Empire. The code provided for the death penalty only for crimes against the state (for example, conspiring to intervene with the imperial succession), but military law of war provided for death penalty by shooting or hanging for some 30 different crimes including banditry, robbery, rape, and premeditated murder. When Lithuania updated its statutes in January and February 1919, the duality remained: the death penalty was abolished in