Foreign & Commonwealth Office

London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 0171-270

13 July 1999

Count Nikolai Tolstoy Court Close
Southmoor
Nr Abingdon
Berkshire OX13 5HS

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of 19 June to the Foreign Secretary. I have been asked to reply as Head of Section responsible for Council of Europe human rights issues.

You raise two issues. Firstly the matter of your application to the European Court of Human Rights following Lord Aldington's libel action against you. You ask whether the present government upholds the stance of the previous government in defending at the Court in Strasbourg the quantum of the libel award.

In deciding how to approach any such case, the Ministers of the day have various considerations to take into account. There is no call for current Ministers to review these considerations or to take a view on such decisions made by their predecessors.

In any event, English law had already been changed, before the introduction of your application, to enable the Court of Appeal to reduce jury awards. So the issue will not arise again.

You also raise allegations of crimes committed by British soldiers in Austria against Russian soldiers and civilians. We are not aware of any evidence to support such allegations. We are aware of the issue of the repatriation of Cossacks at the end of the Second World War. This matter has been investigated thoroughly in the past. The members of the 15th (Cossack) Cavalry Corps and their dependents were resident within the internationally recognised boundaries of the USSR at the start of WWII. Nazi forces subsequently recruited them upon their invasion and occupation. The Cossacks then

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