Petras Raslanas
Petras Raslanas is a Lithuanian war criminal active during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, when he served in the NKVD. He was convicted of the crime of genocide in 2001.Raslanas, an ethnic Lithuanian who is now a Russian citizen, joined the Komsomol in 1931 and the Communist Party of Lithuania in 1938 following which he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by the Lithuanian government for revolutionary activity. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 he became head of the NKVD in Telšiai and is claimed to be responsible for the Rainiai massacre. He since had high positions in the Soviet Union, and was an official in the Soviet Ministry of Religious Affairs.
In 2001 he was convicted of genocide by Šiauliai Area Court in Lithuania in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Russian authorities denied requests for his extradition and he continued to live as a free man in Russia until his death in 2002.
