| Strasbourg acquits WWII veteran convicted by Latvia of war crimes |
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21/12/2007 04:58 (700 Day 22:51 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, the European Court of Human Rights has acquitted a Russian World War II veteran convicted in Latvia of war crimes, a Russian-language newspaper in the Baltic state said on December 21.
Vasily Kononov, 84, who led a guerrilla party during the war, was convicted by Latvian authorities for ordering the killing of nine villagers in 1944, with some reports saying that the dead had included a pregnant woman.
The republic was occupied by German troops at the time. Kononov admitted the killings, but said they were Nazi collaborators, and that they had been caught in cross-fire.
"This is complete victory, one I have sought for eight long years," the Telegraf paper quoted Kononov as saying.
The court found that "Latvia has no grounds for reprisals against me," Kononov said, as quoted by the paper, adding he learned about the verdict on December 20.
The veteran had accused Latvian authorities of treating him in an inhumane and humiliating manner.
A retired police colonel who was born in Latvia, Kononov was arrested in 1998 and sentenced to six years in prison in 2000 on genocide charges. In 2004, after several years of litigation, his sentence was cut to 20 months in prison and the charges changed to "war crimes." Kononov filed an appeal with the court in Strasbourg the same year.
In the fall of 2005, doctors diagnosed Kononov with a life-threatening illness, which prompted the European court to speed up the examination of his case. Russia pressurized Latvian and European authorities over the case.
Latvia, along with neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, became part of the Soviet Union in 1940, and the Soviets wrestled control of the three Baltic nations from Nazi Germany in 1944.
While Russia maintains that the Red Army liberated the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from Nazi invaders, many local residents fail to distinguish between the Soviet and Nazi periods.
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