Mikhail Farbtukh contends he was "tried under laws that did not exist at the time of his alleged crime, and the conditions of his detention amount to inhumane treatment and torture," lawyer Aleksanders Ogurcovs told The Baltic Times.
Farbtukh was sentenced in 2000 to five years in jail for helping deport 31 Latvian families during a Stalinist purge in 1941.
The complaint filed by Farbtukh's 80-year-old wife, Anna, and their son Vladimir, comes after a Latvian court last spring rejected an appeal for his release. The rejection came despite a report by prison doctors, supported by the head of the country's prison service, that he was too sick to stay in jail. Judges ruled that Farbtukh's health had not deteriorated significantly since his conviction, a claim rejected by Ogurcovs.
"His condition is very severe. He needs constant help. He can't even go to the toilet on his own, and he has a heart condition," said Ogurcovs.
Farbtukh continues to maintain he did not participate in the rounding up of thousands of innocent Latvians who were then sent to Siberian labor camps where many died of disease and deprivation.
Latvia has led former Soviet countries in trying former security agents responsible for the deaths of thousands in the 1940s. Unlike neighboring Estonia, it has handed out jail terms rather than suspended sentences.
"It's not right for a person my age to be in here," Farbtukh told the French news agency Agence France-Presse ahead of his appeal hearing last March.
Please enter your username and password.
2024 © The Baltic Times /Cookies Policy
