Moscow’s top investigator speaks out on the latest developments in the Wallenberg case
Published:
19 January 2001 y., Friday
Aleksandr Yakovlev is considered Russia’s most authoritative voice on Soviet-era repression. Often described as the architect of the USSR’s policy of glasnost (openness) under former president Mikhail Gorbachev, he has spent more than a decade clearing the names of about four million people killed or imprisoned during the leadership of Joseph Stalin. Among those victims: Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who bribed and tricked the Nazis into sparing thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II.
WALLENBERG disappeared in Budapest in January,1945, on his way to meet the commanders of the Soviet troops occupying the Hungarian capital. Even today, his fate remains a mystery. Although Russian authorities finally
acknowledged last December that their forces had arrested the Swede on espionage charges and held him until he died in a Soviet prison two-and-a-half years later, a joint Russian-Swedish team reported on Jan. 12 that it could not agree on whether Wallenberg is dead or alive.
Officially, the Russians say Wallenberg died of a heart attack in 1947. But Yakovlev, the chairman of Russia’s Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, believes Wallenberg was executed as a spy that same year.
Šaltinis:
NEWSWEEK-ITOGI
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Every year 10 000 people lose their lives due to landmines.
more »
Frustrated by the technical explanation of the nuclear crisis in Japan, artist Hachiya Kazuhiko creates cartoon character "Nuclear Boy" for clarification.
more »
A Polish collector discovers a photo believed to be of Frederic Chopin taken just after his death in 1849.
more »
EGNOS-for-aviation, a satellite navigation service launched on 2 March 2011, will increase flight safety, reduce delays and open up new destinations.
more »
Worker finds two time capsules amid earthquake rubble in Christchurch as search and rescue teams continue to comb through debris from the New Zealand earthquake.
more »
A group of elderly men in Brazil have taken up running as they race disease and old age.
more »
"Taxi Yoga," a new exercise class for taxi drivers, helps stretch away the stress of driving a cab in New York City.
more »
Twenty-five rescued circus lions leave Bolivia for a new life at a U.S. animal sanctuary.
more »
Colombian flower growers prepare rose exports for Valentine's Day and hope to reap profits despite a strengthening peso.
more »
Mexican animal rights activists coat their bodies in fake blood to protest bullfighting.
more »