Moscow says Wallenberg was executed in 1947 (12/03/00)

Moscow says Wallenberg was executed in 1947

RFE/RL Newsline

MOSCOW - Aleksandr Yakovlev, who heads the Russian presidential commission on rehabilitating victims of political repression, said his commission has "no doubts" that war hero Raoul Wallenberg was executed at the KGB headquarters in Moscow in 1947.

"Wallenberg was a victim of Stalinist repression" and will be "rehabilitated [posthumously] as a victim of political repression," Mr. Yakovlev said.

Wallenberg is credited with having saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews while serving as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest during World War II. He disappeared in January 1945 on his way to meet with a Soviet commander in Hungary.

According to the official Soviet version, he was arrested as a spy by Red Army counterintelligence and died of a heart attack, at age 34 in Moscow's Lubianka prison in July 1947.

A separate Russian-Swedish commission is also investigating the Wallenberg case and is expected to issue its final report in January.

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