Mykolas Burokevičius

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Mykolas Burokevičius (born October 7, 1927, Alytus, Lithuania) is a communist political leader in Lithuania. He established and led an alternative, pro-CPSU, Communist Party of Lithuania in 1990 after the traditional party declared its independence from the CPSU. As such, he served on the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee from 1990 until its ban in 1991.

[edit] Lawsuit

Burokevičius was arrested on January 15, 1994 in Belarus (on Lithuanian orders) for his role in organizing the Soviet Army assault on the Vilnius TV tower and station on January 13, 1991, during which 14 people were killed. He spent the next five years under arrest awaiting sentence.

In August 1999, he was sentenced in Vilnius to 12 years' imprisonment for organizing murders and grievous bodily harm and also for establishing organizations which intended to overthrow the state. He finished the sentence and was released on January 13, 2006.

On January 5, 2006, the European Court of Human Rights accepted Burokevičius' case (No 27434/02) against Lithuania on three counts of possible Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms violations and joined it with two other cases against Lithuania for its Vilnius massacre lawsuits.

Specifically, the court will judge whether Lithuania violated these articles of the convention:

• Article 6 - i.e. spent more than a "reasonable time" awaiting court proceedings
• Article 7 - i.e. sentenced a person for actions which were not crimes at the time under Lithuanian or international law
• Articles 9, 10 and 11, whether alone or in combination with article 14 - in accordance with claims of the defendants that at the time important to the case they could not foresee that actions of Communist party and its organizations would be criminal.