MOSCOW, October 27 (RAPSI) – The Soletsky District Court in the Nizny Novgorod Region on Tuesday adjudged that an act of genocide against peoples of the Soviet Union was committed in Zhestyanaya Gorka village in 1942, RAPSI learnt in the court’s press service.

Prosecutors earlier petitioned the court to rule that these mass murders were war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Acting on instructions of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Novgorod Regional Prosecutor’s Office studied the materials relating to a mass grave of at least 2,600 civilians and prisoners of war murdered by German troops in 1942 through 1943, which was discovered in the village, the statement reads.

The mass murders were committed by a German Teilkommando, some members of which were natives of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, on orders of General Kurt Herzog, who in 1947 was found to be a war criminal by a military tribunal and sentenced to 25 years in prison.