Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 07:51 GMT
World
Raoul Wallenberg: saved thousands of Jews from Nazis
Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov has said the Russians have done everything possible to discover the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi holocaust.
Wallenberg disappeared in 1945 after being arrested by occupying Soviet troops. He was aged 32.
Mr Primakov, for the first time, described Wallenberg’s arrest as “criminal”. But he said there was no reason to doubt that Wallenberg died in a Moscow prison in 1947 of a heart attack.
Many people, including his family, question the official version of his fate. There were a number of unsubstantiated reports of sightings of Wallenberg into the 1970s. This led to the belief that he may have survived.
If he were alive now, he would be 85. But another suspicion is that he may eventually have been executed by Soviet security forces.