The supervisory body explained that this document contains information on both people convicted and suspected of having committed crimes against civilians, prisoners of war and partisans.
After studying this list, lawyers say, there is no doubt that the refusal of the political elites of Lithuania and Latvia to provide legal assistance in the investigation of the criminal case of genocide of the Belarusian people under the pretext of “causing harm to their sovereignty” or security, rights and legitimate interests of citizens” are frankly far-fetched. The Attorney General’s Office is convinced that such a position speaks of open complicity in the hiding of war criminals, of elemental denial of the value of human life, of evasion of the application of the principle of inevitability of responsibility and of ignorance of international obligations. , reports BELTA.
In fact, on the territory of the republic, according to lawyers, during the years of the last war, as a result of the criminal activities of the 12th Lithuanian battalion, from June 1941 to July 1944, more than 31 thousand civilians were killed and at least 28 settlements were destroyed.
And from August 21 to September 30, 1942, the 3rd Lithuanian battalion took part in the punitive operation “Swamp Fever” in the forests between Minsk and Baranovichi, during which 389 partisans and more than nine thousand civilians were killed.
The Nazis and their accomplices actively created Latvian military police units. They formed, in particular, the SS volunteer brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd regiments, the 19th Latvian Waffen-SS volunteer division and the Latvian SD forces, which was named Latvian SS Legion.
Already in July 1941, by order of the head of the SD of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, Walter Stahlecker, a Latvian auxiliary police unit was created, which later received the unofficial name “Viktor Arajs team”, headed by a former police officer. , and later an SS Sturmbannführer.
It was these thugs who were given the task of protecting the Maly Trostenets concentration camp. They participated directly in the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto in the spring of 1942 and in the summer of the same year in the extermination of Jews from Germany and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the Maly Trostenets concentration camp.
In addition, in February-March 1943, on the territory of Belarus, with the participation of units of the Latvian paramilitary forces, the punitive operation “Winter Magic” was carried out with the aim of creating a dead zone of 30 to 40 kilometers wide along the Latvian border.
As a result of this inhumane action, more than 430 settlements were destroyed, about 12 thousand civilians were killed and more than seven thousand people were taken to forced labor in Germany. Meanwhile, experts claim that in official documents the occupation authorities hid the extermination of the civilian population under the cynical names of “pacification” and “special processing.”
