Latvia has decided to reopen the criminal investigation into the crimes of the so-called 'Butcher of Riga,' walking back on the country's prosecution office's choice to close the case last month.
The Prosecutor General's Office announced on Wednesday that it was reopening the investigation into Nazi collaborator Herberts Cukors regarding crimes of genocide, provided for under Article 71 of the Criminal Law.
This comes after the same office terminated the inquiry on April 4. Latvian lawyer David Lipkin told KAN News that “the prosecution has come to the conclusion that Cukurs’s actions do not contain elements of genocide or any other crime, and therefore the case is effectively closed."
Yad Vashem condemned the move at the time, saying that “Latvian war criminal and Nazi collaborator” was “infamous for his role in the Holocaust and involvement in the killing of tens of thousands of Jews."
"This decision was baffling because Cukurs’s horrific war crimes are indisputable,” Yad Vashem added.
According to Yad Vashem, Cukurs held a “senior, operative position in the Arajs Kommando, the unit that from June 1941 until March 1942 carried out mass killings of Jews and other civilians."
“Among other crimes, at the end of 1941, he personally participated in murder operations in Riga’s ghetto and the nearby Rumbula killing site, where Jewish men, women, children, and infants were murdered indiscriminately."
In the Wednesday announcement, the office's spokesperson said, "The Chief Prosecutor of the Pre-Trial Criminal Procedure and Judicial Coordination Division of the Criminal Justice Department of the Prosecutor General's Office has taken a decision to reinstate the criminal proceedings by annulling the decision to terminate it."
This was allegedly in light of the provision of "new information that was not known to the person directing the proceedings before the decision to terminate the criminal proceedings was taken."
The statement added that the decision to terminate the inquiry was made "without seeing the composition of the criminal offence provided for in Article 71 of the Criminal Law," and that in the criminal proceedings, "incriminating and exculpatory evidence was obtained."
Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar welcomed Latvia's just decision to re-open the criminal investigation, adding that "safeguarding the memory of the Holocaust is key in the fight against antisemitism."
Prior criminal proceedings
Cukurs fled to South America after WWII, where he remained until he was assassinated by the Mossad in 1965.
The original criminal proceedings into his involvement in the extermination of Jews began in 2006, before being terminated for the first time in 2018. Following petitions by the Council of Jewish Congregations and Communities of Latvia, the proceedings were reopened in 2019.
According to Latvian media, the petition was based on new evidence, including the testimony of a private individual living in Israel who claimed to have personally witnessed Cukurs's actions in the Riga ghetto. However, the proceedings then closed again in 2023.
A new chief prosecutor reassessed the evidence and opened the proceedings again in January 2024, which remained open until April 2025 when they were again terminated.
This thus marks the third reopening of the investigation.
James Genn contributed to this report.
