The Parliament of Europe has formally asked the Soviet Union to permit an international investigation into the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.
The 518-member Parliament, which is the legislative body of the European Community, headquartered in Strasbourg, France, petitioned the Soviet authorities to place all of the archives related to the Wallenberg case at the disposal of an international commission of historians and experts.
Wallenberg, a young Swedish diplomat posted to Budapest in the final years of World War II, has been credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps by extending them the protection of the Swedish legation.
He was arrested when Soviet troops entered Budapest in January 1945 and has not been heard from since.
The Soviet authorities claim he died in a prison near Moscow in 1947. But numerous reports over the years indicated he may still be alive.
The resolution, adopted in Strasbourg, was introduced by the Christian Democratic, Liberal and Socialist factions at the initiative of Brussels lawyer Simone Lucki, president of the Belgian Wallenberg Committee.
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