Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 103
December 2007
Kononov v. Latvia (dec.) - 36376/04
Decision 20.9.2007 [Section III]
Article 7
Article 7-1
Nullum crimen sine lege
Conviction of war crimes in relation to acts committed in 1944: admissible
Article 7-2
General principles of law recognised by civilised nations
Conviction of war crimes in relation to acts committed in 1944: admissible
The case concerns the criminal conviction in 2004 of a former NCO in the Soviet army for a war crime (the massacre of nine villagers) committed during the Second World War, on Latvian soil, when the country was under occupation. The applicant was born in 1923 and was a Latvian national until 12 April 2000, when he was granted Russian citizenship. In 1942 he was mobilised as a soldier in the Soviet army. In 1943 he was parachuted into what is now Belarus (then occupied by Germany), near the border with Latvia, where he joined a Soviet commando of “red partisans”. According to the Latvian prosecuting authorities and courts, the applicant was in command of a group responsible for an attack on the village of Mazie Bati (Ludza district) on 27 May 1944 in the course of which nine civilians, including three women, were slaughtered.
In January 1998 the Latvian information centre on the consequences of totalitarianism opened a criminal investigation into the events of 27 May 1944. The centre found that the applicant could have committed the war crime covered by provisions of the former criminal code as amended by a law of 6 April 1993. Article 68-3 of the code stated that war crimes were punishable by life imprisonment or a prison sentence of three to fifteen years. Article 6-1 authorised the retroactive application of the law to war crimes and Article 45-1 stipulated that war crimes were not subject to statutory limitations.
In August 1998 the applicant was charged with war crimes. He was taken into custody in October. He appealed, but to no avail. He also pleaded not guilty. The Riga Regional Court found the applicant guilty of the crime covered by Article 68-3 and sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. It noted, in particular, that the applicant had been a member of the Soviet army and therefore a “combatant” within the meaning of the relevant inst
