MOSCOW, August 7 (RAPSI) – A Moscow Region court has stripped a 90-year-old Russian man of his veteran status on the grounds that he was convicted of treason for fighting on the side of the Nazis during World War II, RAPSI legal news agency reported from the Pushkinsky City Court on Wednesday.
"The Belarusian Prosecutor General’s office has provided copies of an archived case revealing that in December 1945 Maslov and several others were sentenced to 10 years in prison for high treason and were stripped of their lieutenant ranks by a military court," the press service of the Russian Prosecutor General’s office reported earlier.
In July 1942, Maslov was captured while serving as a communications officer with the headquarters of the 11th Cavalry Corps at the Kalinin Front. During interrogation, he allegedly disclosed the whereabouts of a group of Russian officers hiding in the woods. In December, he is reported to have voluntarily joined enemy troops.
He served with the SS-Jagdverband Mitte battalion in France from August 1943 to September 1944, when he was captured by US soldiers. He was later denied a pardon.
Nevertheless, in November 1980, the Moscow region's military registration office issued him a certificate stating that he had participated in World War II. Under Russian law, such certificates cannot be issued to people who were not pardoned, the prosecutors say, hence the social support he was given on the basis of his veteran status was illegal.
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