A former Latvian member of the Waffen-SS, the “Center for the Organization of Liberated Latvia” —the German Nazis organized Latvian nationalist units after the invasion—, the Riga Public Safety Service and of the Latvian Security Police under the leadership of Viktor Arajs, which served as an “auxiliary body” of the fascists and was thus involved in the murder and persecution of thousands of Soviet citizens, was convicted of multiple war crimes committed in concert with others. He was also convicted of falsifying official documents. The conviction in this regard stems from attempts to conceal his affiliation with the fascist apparatus after the end of World War II. When he registered as a Latvian nationalist shortly after the Nazi invasion, he denounced several students, which led to the murder of two of them. He was also involved in an incident in which at least 80 Jewish citizens were forcibly driven from their homes and forced to perform cleanup work. As a member of the Latvian Security Police, he participated in the violent closures of Jewish businesses and the confiscation of Jewish property. In that role, he also supported the persecution of political dissidents. In addition, he participated in mass executions of Jewish Soviet citizens and Soviet officials—which claimed hundreds of lives—in the Bikerniki Forest near Riga, personally murdering a total of 24 people in the process.The Riga Public Order Service assisted in the mass murder of Jewish Soviet citizens from the Riga Ghetto in the Rumbula Forest, located outside Riga, which claimed a total of 27,000 lives. The defendant was directly involved in the killing of 6,000 Jewish citizens, 10 of whom he shot with his own hands. The appeals court modified the conviction on a few points and acquitted the defendant on those points, so that the amended judgment is based on the aforementioned war crimes.

Art. 6 lit. b., c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 I, II StGB, § 1 VI EG zum STGB u ZPO der DDR, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity