A Moscow district court rejected a lawsuit [11] Sept. 18 filed by a relative of Raoul Wallenberg [12], seeking to access uncensored documents concerning Wallenberg's death in Soviet captivity. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who is said to have rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II. Soviet forces detained [13] Wallenberg in 1945, supposedly for espionage, and placed him in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison [14] (then part of the headquarters complex of NKVD, later the KGB). The USSR released a document in 1954 saying Wallenberg died in Lubyanka of heart failure in 1947. The actual cause of Wallenberg's death is still a matter of speculation. Wallenberg's niece, Marie Dupuy, filed the lawsuit against [15] the KGB successor organization, the Federal Security Service (FSB [16]), requesting documents that would shed light on the circumstances surrounding his death.
Ivan Pavlov, the lawyer representing the family, said [17]: "Russian authorities have been repeatedly declining to provide Wallenberg's relatives with documents, which could clarify his fate." The court rejected the lawsuit, stating that the documents could not be released [18] because they also contained personal information about other individuals.
From Jurist [19], Sept. 19. Used with permission.
