[4] Kononov was convicted for his role in three deaths in Mazie Bati, a Latvian village where local inhabitants had denounced alleged partisans who were then killed by German troops.
A short time later Kononov led a unit, posing as German Wehrmacht personnel, into the village and killed nine civilians, including three women, one in the late stages of pregnancy who was burned alive.
[5][6] On 27 May 1944, a detachment of the Soviet First Latvian Partisan Battalion led by Kononov staged a "counter operation" against the village of Mazie Bati.
[3][9] In July 1998, original proceedings against Kononov were commenced by the Latvian Principal Public Prosecutor's Office, whereby in August 1998 he was formally charged and ultimately indicted in December 1998.
[3] The prosecution appealed and on 30 April 2004, the decision of the lower court was overturned and Kononov was found guilty of war crimes, and subsequently jailed.
[11][12] A press release published by the ECHR on 24 July 2008 revealed the Court's decision, establishing, by four votes to three, that the Kononov's case presented a violation of Article 7 (no retrospective punishment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court determined the execution of the villagers was in violation of established international law at the time, as Kononov was only entitled to arrest them, and his conviction was not barred by statute of limitations.
In April 2000, immediately before judgement was to be handed down in his appeal with the Supreme Court of Latvia, he was offered citizenship of the Russian Federation by President Vladimir Putin.
[20] Sergey Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council of Russia, expressed hopes that President Dmitry Medvedev's Historical Truth Commission would also become involved in the Kononov case.
[21] Kononov's defence team, along with Russia's representative to the ECHR, Deputy Justice Minister Georgi Matyushkin, warned the ruling poses grave dangers to the legal legacy of the Nuremberg trials from World War II.