Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lays a flower in the Lubyanka metro station to commemorate the victims of the March 31 terrorist attack. Although Kusaitė's arrest was not related to that attack, according to police the young Lithuanian woman planned to conduct a similar attack by exploding a bomb strapped to her chest in a Moscow subway train.

VILNIUS — Lithuanian police may have prevented a repeat incident of the March 31 Moscow metro terrorist attack.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has formally charged a Lithuanian woman with conspiring to take part in a terrorist act in Russia similar to the March 31 attack, but denied media reports that the arrest is directly linked to the recent Moscow bombings.

The March 31 terrorist bombing of the Moscow underground stations, allegedly conducted by two female suicide bombers, killed 40 people in two different locations in the Russian capital. The blast was claimed by Chechen terrorists who want to bring “all-out war” to the streets of the country, part of an ongoing civil war in Russia’s Chechnya federal subject.

Eglė Kusaitė, a 20-year-old Klaipėda native, has been charged participating with a group to commit an act of terrorism. In convicted she could face up to 10 years behind bars.

Prosecutors released a statement stating the arrest of Kusaitė was not related and that local media had made the link, fallaciously, on their own.

“Some are trying to artificially link two unrelated events, a crime prevented by our officers and an explosion that happened much later,” media representative for the prosecutor’s office Algimantas Kliunka said in a statement to the press Tuesday.

Kusaitė was arrested on Oct. 24 and has been held since. Originally attended by a state-provided lawyer, Kusaitė changed to private lawyer who asked the court to release her. The court ruled on April 22 to keep her in detention three months longer, however, in fear that she would flee.

March 31 all over again?

Prosecutors had not released any information about the case until an open court session Tuesday.

“Egle Kusaitė performed illegal actions, and was likely ordered by someone to go to Russia and blow herself up at a military object,” prosecutor Justas Laucius said in court.

Kusaitė was arrested with her Lithuanian passport that had a Russian visa inside and a ticket to Moscow. In her bag were documents on how to make explosives and information on the workings of the underground transport network in the Russian capital.

It is alleged by prosecutor Justas Laucius that Kusaitė had links to Chechen terrorist groups from who she received training in bomb making and funding to help her in that pursuit. She is also said to have links to other terrorist groups in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and England.

The Baltic News Service reported that the accused had been married to a young Chechen man under Islamic law, but he left her to return home to fight in the resistance and was killed in fighting.

Her mother, a Lithuanian language teacher, reported to police that she had gone missing in 2007. Previous to this, her mother noticed a fascination with Chechen people and their struggle. She would spend days on the Internet conversing with Chechen men and women.

A Europe-wide search found her living with a Chechen family living in Germany. She was found also to have lived with a Chechen couple who let her live in a room without windows and furniture except for a dirty mattress where she would spend entire days.

Her fascination with Islam grew until she returned home, allegedly telling her mother that she preferred Chechens to Lithuanians according to unofficial sources.

A trial will follow.

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