Estonia puts ex-Soviet agents on trial

Thousands of Estonians were deported under Stalin

Eight former Soviet secret police officials have gone on trial in Estonia charged with deporting more than 400 Estonians to Siberia in the 1940s.

Five of the men appeared in a special court in Kuressaare, 200 kilometres (124 miles) south-west of the capital, Tallinn, in front of some of their alleged victims.

Life was different then

Albert Kolga, defendant

The accused, now all in their seventies and eighties, deny the charges against them.

Russia has condemned such trials of former Stalinist agents as retribution against ailing old men.

The cases came to light when files were discovered in a cellar in Tallinn after Estonia regained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Mass deportations

The eight men, some of whom are Russian citizens, are alleged to have sent 400 inhabitants of Saaremaa Island to Siberia, some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away, aboard ferries and cattle trucks.

Victims were sent to Siberian wastelands

The defendants have denied committing crimes, saying they were only following orders at the time of the alleged offences.

"You know, life was different then," one of the accused, Albert Kolga, told an Estonian newspaper last month.

"I didn't break any laws," he said.

Three of the defendants did not appear in court due to ill health.

But a former deportee, Juta Vessik, said the accused men should be punished despite their ages.

"Let them try jail for themselves," she said.

"After all, they deported old people - even babies."

If convicted, the accused men face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Agents convicted

Since 1991, five former Soviet agents have been convicted of human rights abuses in Estonia, but only one, Karl-Leonhard Paulov, has been jailed.

Paulov, who deported 40 Estonians to Siberia, died in February at the age of 77, after serving one year of an eight-year sentence.

Millions of people were deported from their homes - including around 200,000 from the Baltics - under the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have vowed to prosecute any former Soviet agents suspected of being involved in such crimes.