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VILNIUS, July 18 (Reuters) - Lithuania said on Monday it was recalling temporarily its ambassador from Austria in protest at Austria's decision to release a former Soviet officer wanted in connection with a bloody 1991 crackdown on independence supporters.

Lithuania is still pursuing Soviet-era military officers to answer charges dating from an armed assault on Vilnius's television tower on January 13, 1991, when it was ringed by pro-independence demonstrators. Fourteen people were killed in the attack.

Vilnius expressed outrage last week after Austrian authorities detained but later released Mikhail Golovatov, who was an officer in the Soviet-era elite unit that led the attack.

"Austria's decision to release the suspect in the January 13th case... discredits the European Union's cooperation on legal matters," President Dalia Grybauskaite said.

In a statement, she said she had ordered the foreign and justice minister to inform their EU colleauges about the case and to recall Lithuania's ambassador from Vienna for consultations at home, a diplomatic sign of displeasure.

The General Prosecutor's office said Golovatov, a Russian citizen, was detained at Vienna airport last Thursday under a European arrest warrant but was released the next day, although Lithuania complied with an Austrian request for additional information.

Lithuania and the other Baltic states eventually re-established their internationally recognised independence after the abortive Soviet hardline coup of August 1991.

Austria stood by its decision.

"We have the rule of law with an independent judiciary," Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

"There was a request, we set a deadline to highlight that with concrete details. This deadline ran out without such concrete details," he said, adding that the Austrian prosecutor therefore decided to let Golovatov go.

A high-profile criminal case in Lithuania, the January 13th attack has led to convictions and prison terms for some of those involved. Prosecutors are seeking other suspects hiding in Russia and Belarus. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, additionaly reporting by David Brunnstrom and Ilona Wissenbach in Brussels and Sylvia Westall in Vienna, editing by Roger Atwood)