Latvian nazis never rest. This pursuit of an honorable man is shameful and pathetic, and hopefully the Strasbourg court will stick to its guns and reinforce its rejection of the pro-nazi historical revisionism that seems to be so prevalent in the Baltic states today.

The article states, “But the country’s large ethnic Russian community, as well as Russia, say it’s an attempt to re-write the history of World War II and belittle the Soviets’ role in liberating Latvia.” No one belittles or doubts the Soviets’ huge effort and sacrifice in their fight against Nazi Germany, including in their efforts to re-conquer Latvia and the Baltics. To say that that there is any general thrust to belittle that effort is entirely untrue. There are only emotional allegations to that effect by Russian sources, with no documented evidence ever being provided. But equally, calling the Soviet re-conquest of Latvia and the Baltics a “liberation” is just a lie. Describing the transference of these countries from the tyranny of Nazi occupation into the tyranny of Soviet occupation and into undiluted Stalinist terror with all its associated injustice, anguish and horror a “liberation” is horrible. Where was the supposed liberty? There was none, only oppression, suffering, injustice and the unfreedom of a foreign occupier continuing to suppress and deny those countries’ sovereignty. The pain of that experience is so deep and so recent in Baltic and general East European memory that Russia’s ongoing characterization of it as “liberation” continues to be the worst possible insult that Russia can offer those countries – and Russia serves it to them ceaselessly. In accordance with Russia’s relentless mantra, the article refers to a supposed re-writing of history. No one who makes such an allegation ever details as much as one aspect of WW2 history that has been “rewritten”, specifying what it has be changed from, what it has been changed to, by whom and when. This article doesn’t, either. Making such a radical claim as history having been re-written, and providing not one verifiable point of evidence in support of it, brings only discredit onto Russia.

Marzipan6 Latvia is a tiny nation that is doing the bidding for greater powers who want to re-write the History of WWII as a new geopolitical weapon against Russia. Russia should stay the course of honouring this heroic man financially and legally; Russia also should also continue with its massive efforts in investing in preserving the true history of WWII and the heroic efforts of the Red Army who won WWII- of course- without denying crimes committed by the Soviet leadership of that time. The fascists will fail to re-write the history of WWII.

It has nothing to do with Latvian nazis or German nazis. Is it not the same whether for which side one fought, if one burnt women alive. There is no victor's truth in the law. If you commit a crime you must suffer. The Nazis were punished, now some criminal victors deserve at least public condemnation. It has nothing to do with honest soviet soldiers who did what all honest soldiers have to do.

It is amazing to see how Russia keeps the talk of liberation. If it said Stalkin was terrible, communism was terrible, sorry what we did to you, it wouyld gain many friends in Eastern Europe. Who is the liberator is decided by the liberated ones, not the " liberator" . One could say that Chingizhan, Napoleon and Hitler liberated Russia, but I suppose Russians would not agree. And they are the ones who can judge. So are the European nations.

"The honourable man", Mr Kononov (who joined KGB after WWII), and his band pushed a pregnant woman into the fire of her burning farm until she died. The Soviet Union was in Latvia due to an agreement with Nazi Germany (The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact) in the first place. Most of these Latvians were never Nazis, they were freedom fighters - navigating between Russian and German invaders like so many times before. You have real war heroes in Russia. Old men and women who survived the siege of Leningrad or defended Moscow. Why do not you celebrate them instead a war criminal and ex-KGB man like Mr Kononov?

Perhaps what makes WWII so contentious is the way in which it has been litigated ever since and used as official propaganda to support regimes, even ones like the Russian Federation, which did not exist in 1945. Were WWI soldiers held as accountable for their deeds?

@ Gazza: Has it ever come to your mind that the European Court of Human Rights' panel of judges is made up of members from different European Countries, many - if not most - of which were occupied by German troops during WWII? Hence, nobody tries to "re-write" history in court, nor anywhere else. There's also no such thing as THE history, the perception of history is as relative and subjective as is that of "the" truth or "the" reality. While I condemn the treatment of the ethnic Russian population of today's Baltic republics by their authorities, at least in the recent past, i terms of sometimes limiting their human rights, I also despise the partisans' acts in wartime in those countries which were forcefully occupied twice by evil powers in the 20th century, hence never really "liberated" until the Soviet Union fell apart. The soviet troops, and the partisans in particular weren't the Salvation Army, they were fighting for THEIR cause, often disrespecting basic principles of humanity and human rights (as did the German and their auxiliary troops). This is why the first Geneva conventions where created, which the Soviet Union exited or didn't join, respectively. Since those conventions were only valid if all involved warring parties were signatories, the war fought between Germany (which was a signatory but largely disregarded the treaties' clauses) and the Soviet Union took place outside most of the applicable provisions of international law. For the same reason there no ground for complaining when - as in the current case - one side's violations of human rights are sought to be punished while the other side's - as in the Nuremberg trials - aren't. The essence is, we need to be aware human rights, though representing just a smallest common denominator - are a essential, valid and legally-binding tool in order to get along with each other, both at the domestic as well as the international level.

Russians and other Slavic people like Ukrainians and Belorussians should think what would have happen to them if Nazism prevail over there lands.

I don't know much about the issue, granted - we visited Riga on a cruise -- but isn't it the pot calling the kettle black for Russia to use the word Nazi? Russia seems like a grim and menacing place. I believe they have Martial Law. When we were in Estonia, I thought I was in Sweden until I was corrected.

This Kononovs is a great man. I feel shame of Europe that didnt support him. In Norway afhter the war we hunted done all the Nazi Sympatisør and killed them. This was done without any court decition. We punich all the people ho cooperaiting with Nazi people. It is a shame to se ho many Nazist and facist it is in Latvia today. Kononovs you have my fully moral support and stick to your fight.

@ John Potter, were you joking? If you were serious, then may I suggest you look at a wider selection of news sources. A lot of things have changed in Russia in the past 20-30 years. Unlike during the Soviet Union, Russia does not threaten to invade countries in Eastern Europe (no matter what some may say). The Georgian war in 2008 was started by the Georgians, and the first people killed were Russians, so I wouldn't count that as strong evidence that Russia is aggressive toward all its neighbors - just the ones that act like jerks. That "scary monster" Putin would rather spend his time doing business deals with the Germans, Italians, Turks, French, Chinese, et al. Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty after WWII because they still disagree over the Kuril Islands, but that hasn't stopped them from doing business with each other, and last year Japan was Russia's first customer at its new liquified natural gas port. Just consider that we in the USA get very incomplete coverage of what is happening in Russia, especially if all of our news comes from CNN or the New York Times (which sets the tone for many other papers' editorial pages). Do a search on European news outlets - most of them have English translations. If you rely on just the Estonian view of Russia, you will get a very warped report because they have not forgiven Russia for what Stalin did 70 years ago under the Soviet Union. Not everybody equates Stalin with Hitler. By the way, Stalin is dead and the new president is Medvedev, who is slightly more liberal and forward thinking. As for "martial law", I think the last person who tried it was Yeltsin during his attack on the Russian legislature in 1993, but that was during the anarchy years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia has a lot of problems to deal with, but martial law and mobs running wild in the streets are not on the list. If you WERE joking, well then, never mind. :)

To ME Jansen who mistakenly claims “Estonia has never forgiven Russia for what Stalin did 70 years ago under the Soviet Union”: Estonia does not and never has blamed the Russian Federation for what Stalin did. It blames the Russian Federation for what the Russian Federation does, and rightly so. This includes Russia continuing to embrace some of Stalin’s most offensive lies, like the Baltics supposedly joining the SU freely and legally, Russia refusing to even investigate let alone bringing a single Russian citizen to answer for crimes such people committed in the Baltics, Russia refusing to return looted national treasures to the Baltics despite promising to do so, and Russia continuing lie about present-day Baltics. The reason such offenses have not been forgiven is not only because they are on-going, but because the offender has not asked for forgiveness. To Gazza, who says he condemns the treatment of ethnic Russians in the Baltics: he must have some specific policies in mind. Is he sure that the information on which he bases these is accurate? Perhaps he could share with us two or three allegedly condemnable Estonian policies, and subject these to factual analysis here. To Red Star, who claims Latvia is doing the bidding for greater powers who supposedly want to re-write WW2 history: which “greater powers,” what is his evidence of their manipulation of Latvia or the Baltics generally, what do they want to “change history” from, what do they want to change it to, and what is Red Star’s evidence for that supposed ambition? Or is Red Star simply expressing a personally biased opinion? Furthermore, how do the 14 judges from across all Europe who voted in favour of the judgment, only one of whom was Latvian, somehow indicate Latvia doing the bidding of a mysterious “greater power”? Finally to Russia: when a child is caught doing wrong, he typically spouts that it was all someone else’s fault. A mature nation is expected to behave differently.

Riga, Well said, indeed that was the correct legal norm at the time. But there is a bigger picture, whilst many brave europeans - the french resistance, free Poles, free Dutch .... went through hell and had to do difficult things to win the victory against the criminal Nazi regime. Other European liberals capitulated and are filled with guilt that they could not match the fire of the evil Nazi regime, with the requisite fire necessary to defeat them, only the allies, with Russia doing the brunt, had the resolve, the commitment and the ability to meet the Nazis with total matching ferocity, so that they could be defeated. The European liberals feel guilt about this, some of their leaders didn't have the metal to quench the Nazi fire. So now they want to politically say the allies fought foul, a sort of, if we had done that we might have held out. You only won because you breached regulations. We had Stalingrad, they went and earned money in Nazi administration! It is the normal beurocrat's political elite european mantra, spawned from their inadequacy in the war, a war that had to be won for them by some of their own brave people fighting alongside the external allies. They live in a free europe thanks to the allies, but find it awkward, because as european elite, they contributed nothing, even collaborated freely in many cases. Only some of the European people could meet the Nazis with the required ferocity, and I salute them all!

@ Marzipan6, your response just underlined my argument. I doubt anybody from the Russian Federation will be able to apologize to your satisfaction. Tell your masters that they might want to use honey instead of vinegar, because they are not likely to get a lot of sympathy with the current story line.

Riga writes, “In Norway after the war we hunted done all the Nazi sympathisers and killed them.” That’s because Norway had the immense good fortune to have been occupied by only one brutal oppressor, and Norway’s path to freedom was clear: defeat it, and deal with those who lent it their support. Estonia wasn’t nearly as fortunate. In 1940 Estonia was occupied by Russia when Estonia had and was fully observing a mutual assistance treaty with Moscow and when Russia was at peace with Germany. Upon gaining control of the country, Russia imprisoned all government members it could find, deported over 10,000 ordinary civilians, mostly women and children, into Siberian slavery where most died, and murdered hundreds of others outright. Then came the German occupiers, who were at first welcomed as saviours, because Estonians couldn’t possibly imagine a worse hell than they had just endured at the hands of the Soviets. But soon it became clear that Germans had no intention of restoring Estonian sovereignty, and were also nothing more than brutal occupiers – though not as brutal as Russians had been. When it was clear that Germany would lose the war and Russians were on their way back to continue their atrocities of 1941, many Estonians joined the German military (they had no army of their own, Russians had already previously destroyed that) to try to defend their homeland and their families from the return of Soviet terror. At no time did they have any commitment to German war aims. Their effort to keep Russians returning failed, and after 1945 Moscow applied an even more savage regime of terror than it had in 1941, entirely justifying Estonians’ attempt to defend their country against them. Moscow’s occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania lasted until 1991, which is when WW2 ended for the Baltics. As you can see, Riga, you can thank whoever your god is that Norway was not a Baltic country. And moderate your judgmentalism.

To ME Jansen: indeed Russia is unlikely to concur with facts of history any time soon. This is because it is in deep, deep denial, and psychologically incapable of looking at certain realities of its Soviet era history in the eye. Russia’s Baltic neighbours are equally as incapable of sharing its vision by sinking into Stalin’s diseased fantasies of their own history.

Was it not the common practice to shoot collaborators during the war? were the collaborators not always unarmed civilians? How many collaborators were executed by resistance fighters all across occupied Europe? So when are the french, Belgians, norwegians and yugoslavs starting the trials of there veteran resistance fights for shooting collaborators? Answer me,or does it only apply to fascist states in the EU who are left along as long as they continue to play the faithful dog role.

MEJanssen I think some eastern European bloc countries are already adjusting their public rhetoric toward Russia. Some of them are already using more honey than vinegar when speaking with Russia. But of course, there are also powerful countries whose geopolitical interests are being served by this and similar emotive actions which are meant to irritate Russia rather than restoring justice. This witch hunt against almost 90 years veteran whose own family members went to German concentration camps does not deserve this cruel treatment. Thank you Russia for taking of this Red Army partisan WWII veteran; thank you Russia for covering his legal expenses and for standing up for him and shame on those who want to persecute him because they want to irritate Russia.