RIGA, Feb 10 (LETA) - Smart Administration and Regional Development Minister Raimonds Cudars (New Unity) has suspended Rezekne Mayor Aleksandrs Bartasevics (Together for Latvia/Latvia First) from his job as Bartasevics has failed to obtain security clearance, the minister's advisor Sabine Spurke informed LETA.

A mayor of a city council is considered to be suspended from his or her job as of the date of publication of the minister's decree in government gazette Latvijas Vestnesis.

As reported, Cudars last week asked Bartasevics to resign over the failure to obtain security permit, but Bartasevics continued as Rezekne mayor up until now.

The law provides several reasons why a person may be denied security clearance. For example, a person may be denied security clearance if his or her legal capacity is restricted, or if the person was an employee or agent of security services of the Soviet Union or of a country that is not a member of NATO and the European Union.

Security clearance may also be denied if information is obtained about the person that gives grounds to doubt the person's reliability and ability to safeguard state secrets, or if the person has been found to have mental or behavioral disorders, including due to alcohol or drug abuse.

Bartasevics has also been charged in a criminal case with disclosing restricted access information, as well as with deliberately withholding information on property acquired abroad and other large-scale incomes in his tax returns for 16 years. Vidzeme District Court in Gulbene is scheduled to continue hearing the case in March.