More than 5,000 residents of the Kuril Islands and the Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East have signed an appeal to be filed to the European Court of Human Rights over a court's decision accusing a Soviet World War II veteran of war crimes, a local politician said.
"The ruling made by the Strasbourg court is of a political and agenda-driven nature. Residents of the Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands have expressed their indignation over the verdict," said Konstantin Saprykin, who heads the local United Russia party's youth branch.
He said the document would be sent to Moscow on June 12 to be handed over to the Strasbourg court.
Vasily Kononov, 87, who led a group of resistance fighters against Nazi Germany in the Baltic state during World War II, was jailed by Latvia in 1998 after he was convicted of ordering the killing of nine villagers in 1944. He admitted to the killings, but said the dead were Nazi collaborators who were caught in crossfire.
In 2008, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Latvia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights in imprisoning Kononov because the villagers' murder was not a crime under Soviet or international law at the time it was committed. The court referred to Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits retroactive punishment for crimes.
In May, the upper chamber of the European Court of Human Rights upheld the appeal by Latvia against the court's 2008 ruling that the conviction of Kononov was illegal.
Russia has slammed the court's decision, saying it was aiding those who sought to distort history.
YUGNO-SAKHALINSK, June 10 (RIA Novosti)
