Katruk

died nine years ago. He was not prosecuted during his lifetime.

The press service of the Supreme Court reports on the process. Katruk will be judged according to Art. 127 (genocide) of the Criminal Code of Belarus. It is known that there are 35 volumes in the case, about 40 witnesses pass through it.

Two and a half years ago, the Prosecutor General's Office started an investigation into the criminal case about the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Second World War, then a separate case related to Katruk appeared.

"The Supreme Court of First Instance will start the trial at 10:00 a.m. on the criminal case against Katruk U.K. (1921 - 2015) in the commission of the crime provided for in art. 127 of the Criminal Code (genocide)," Sputnik was told in court.

In July 2023,

signed the law "On Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code", which allows criminal cases to be instituted against the dead and sentencing them under 10 articles of the Criminal Code (among them are genocide, ecocide, international terrorism, preparation or waging of an aggressive war, use weapons of mass destruction and other war crimes).

Uladzimir Katruk is a Canadian citizen of Ukrainian origin. He was accused of the fact that, acting on the instructions of German officers, he and other soldiers of the auxiliary forces of the German police from the 118th battalion of the Schutzmannschaft drove the residents of Khatyn from their houses, then drove them to a barn on the outskirts of the village and pushed them into it, and then set straw on fire the roof People who tried to escape from the fire were shot by the SS. As a result, 149 civilians were killed, including 75 minors.

In 1944, Katruk deserted from the German army and went to the side of the Srantz Resistance movement, joined the French Foreign Legion and went to the front to fight the German army. After the war, he lived in Paris. In 1951 he emigrated to Canada. Upon receiving Canadian citizenship, he declared that he had nothing to do with the Nazis. However, in 1999, the Canadian authorities became aware of his connections with them, and he was stripped of his Canadian citizenship. Later, in May 2007, this decision was revised due to lack of evidence. In November 2010, a federal appeals court upheld Katruk's return to Canadian citizenship.

In 2012, Jewish organizations that accused Katruk of complicity in crimes committed by the Nazis demanded that he be stripped of his Canadian citizenship.

Katruk died in Canada in May 2015 at the age of 93.