European court to rule Latvian case

Kyt · Jun 27, 2008

European court to rule on WWII dispute - UPI.com

STRASBOURG, France, June 27 (UPI) -- A Latvian who fought with Soviets against the Nazis is seeking damages for his conviction years after the fact for killing villagers who betrayed partisans.

Vasiliy Kononov, 85, has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, The Daily Mail reported. He wants $8 million in damages for his 2001 conviction, which led to his serving more than a year of a six-year sentence.

Like those of many people in Eastern Europe, Kononov's life has been turned around several times by shifting historical tides. His lawyer, Mikhail Joffe, said that during the war Kononov was personally responsible for blowing up 14 German troop trains.

In 1944, he was assigned to find out what had happened to a group of partisans in the village of Maliye Baty. Wearing a Nazi coat, he tricked a group of villagers into boasting of killing them and then helped execute the villagers.

One child was killed, which Kononov says was a mistake.

After the war, with Latvia part of the Soviet Union, Kononov rose to be a police colonel. But he was arrested in 1998 for the 1944 killings on the grounds that Latvians who collaborated with the Nazis were patriots trying to protect their country from the Soviets.*
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*And interesting interpretation!!

Kyt · Jun 27, 2008

Russian WW2 Veteran Wins a Case Against Latvia :: Russia-InfoCentre

The European Court of Human Rights has satisfied the claim of the 85-year-old Russian partisan Vasily Kononov against Latvia where he was convicted “guilty of committing military crimes”.

The judgement was passed on the 19th of June but its text and the amount of compensation are to be officially announced on the 24th of July.

The defendant’s lawyer has no doubts his client will get the full compensation demanded – 5 million EUR. The maximum compensation ever adjudged by the European Court of Human Rights was 250.000 EUR.

The former partisan spent over 2.5 years in Latvian prison after he had been convicted guilty of killing nine civilians in one of the local villages in 1944. Vasily Kononov`s defence emphasised the fact that the people he killed were Nazi collaborators.
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http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/26686

The European court of Human Rights has upheld the complaint of a World War Two veteran against Latvia, where he had been found guilty of war crimes, reports Latvian Russian-language newspaper Vesti Segodnya, which quotes his lawyer.

Vasily Kononov, a Russian citizen, had asked for over 5 million euros from the Latvian government for what he claimed was bias in applying criminal law. The conditions of compensation to him have not been made public, the paper writes.

During the war, Kononov was the head of a partisan unit, fighting against the Nazis on Latvian territory. He was awarded 27 national awards.

In 1998 Kononov was arrested and charged with killing nine civilians in 1944. He didn't deny the claims but said the people had been Nazi collaborators.

Kononov has accused the Latvian government of politicising the proceedings and attempting to rewrite history.
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European court to rule Latvian case

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