| Information |  | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
| ||
| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
| ||
10Nov14
Russia's military prosecutors receive foreign requests to rehabilitate Nazi criminals
Russia's Military Prosecutor's Office has been receiving a growing number of requests from abroad to rehabilitate Nazi criminals, Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinsky said in an interview to be published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily on Tuesday.
"We are considering plenty of applications from foreign nationals and their relatives," Fridinsky said. "The Military Prosecutor's Office received 117 rehabilitation requests from Germany in the first 9 months of 2014. Their number keeps growing from year to year," the chief military prosecutor said.
The question of rehabilitation of Nazi criminals guilty of crimes against peace and against humanity is regulated by the Germany-based Control Council Law No.10 on "Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes against Peace and Against Humanity" adopted on December 20, 1945.
"Under the provisions of the aforesaid document, all rehabilitation requests from German citizens should be considered by the Russian Military Prosecutor's Office which draws its conclusions on each particular case and sends them to court. Later, the court decides whether a person deserves acquittal and rehabilitation. This practice has been applied for almost 70 years," Fridinsky said.
"A district military court considered 21 criminal cases involving German nationals last year compared to over 24 cases in the first nine months of 2014. The applicants include civilians and former servicemen of the German armed forces /the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1946/; members of SS protection squads and troops convicted of committing war crimes," the Russian chief military prosecutor said.
"But the court ruled that none of those persons deserved rehabilitation," Fridinsky went on to say adding that he regarded many applications as "an attempt to smooth over the scars of the past."
He, however, said that some applications could be classified as open attempts to whiten fascism. "Unfortunately, this trend can be seen in the West today. We believe that the authors of these applications are either unaware of the true circumstances under the Nazi crimes were committed or try to portray the war criminals as rank-and-file perpetrators of someone else's will," Fridinsky told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
[Source: Itar Tass, Moscow, 10Nov14]
 | This document has been published on 12Nov14 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |