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STALIN'S GRANDSON FILES DEFAMATION SUIT AGAINST RUSSIAN TV HOST
Tert.am
21:52 28.10.11
Joseph Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, has filed a defamation
lawsuit against Channel One television host Vladimir Pozner, who
maintains that Stalin authorized the killing of thousands of Polish
POWs in the 1940 Katyn massacre.
According to RIA Novosti, during his TV show broadcast on October 24,
Pozner said that "several thousand innocent Polish officers were shot
and killed [in Katyn]."
More than 20,000 Polish officers, police and civilians taken prisoner
during the 1939 partitioning of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, in Katyn,
near the Western Russian city of Smolensk.
During his show, Pozner described the killing of the officers as a
"heinous crime" that took place "on [NKVD chief Lavrenty] Beria's
recommendation, and certainly with Stalin's sanction."
Dzhugashvili has demanded that the host refute his statements, his
lawyer Sergei Strygin said.
"My client believes that the information that Stalin approved the
shooting in Katyn of several thousand innocent Polish officers is
false and offends the honor and dignity of this grandfather," he said.
Dzhugashvili has also dismissed Pozner's "statements that the Soviet
authorities committed a heinous crime and that all Polish officers
- each and all - who were captured by the Red Army starting from
September 17, 1939, were shot dead," the lawyer said.
The Soviet Union always blamed the massacre on the Nazis, saying the
killings took place in 1941, when the territory was in German hands.
However, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev formally admitted in 1990
that the executions took place around 1940, and were carried out by
the NKVD.
In the 1990s, Russia handed over to Poland copies of documents from
top-secret File No.1, which placed the blame squarely on the Soviet
Union. In November last year, the lower house of Russia's parliament
approved a declaration recognizing the Katyn massacre as a crime
committed by Joseph Stalin's regime.
From: Baghdasarian
Tert.am
21:52 28.10.11
Joseph Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, has filed a defamation
lawsuit against Channel One television host Vladimir Pozner, who
maintains that Stalin authorized the killing of thousands of Polish
POWs in the 1940 Katyn massacre.
According to RIA Novosti, during his TV show broadcast on October 24,
Pozner said that "several thousand innocent Polish officers were shot
and killed [in Katyn]."
More than 20,000 Polish officers, police and civilians taken prisoner
during the 1939 partitioning of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, in Katyn,
near the Western Russian city of Smolensk.
During his show, Pozner described the killing of the officers as a
"heinous crime" that took place "on [NKVD chief Lavrenty] Beria's
recommendation, and certainly with Stalin's sanction."
Dzhugashvili has demanded that the host refute his statements, his
lawyer Sergei Strygin said.
"My client believes that the information that Stalin approved the
shooting in Katyn of several thousand innocent Polish officers is
false and offends the honor and dignity of this grandfather," he said.
Dzhugashvili has also dismissed Pozner's "statements that the Soviet
authorities committed a heinous crime and that all Polish officers
- each and all - who were captured by the Red Army starting from
September 17, 1939, were shot dead," the lawyer said.
The Soviet Union always blamed the massacre on the Nazis, saying the
killings took place in 1941, when the territory was in German hands.
However, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev formally admitted in 1990
that the executions took place around 1940, and were carried out by
the NKVD.
In the 1990s, Russia handed over to Poland copies of documents from
top-secret File No.1, which placed the blame squarely on the Soviet
Union. In November last year, the lower house of Russia's parliament
approved a declaration recognizing the Katyn massacre as a crime
committed by Joseph Stalin's regime.
From: Baghdasarian