A five-nation commission that will try once and for all to determine the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg expects to present its findings next May to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, human rights activist Samuel Pisar said at a news conference here Thursday.
The commission consists of Sweden and the three countries that have awarded Wallenberg honorary citizenship — the United States, Canada and Israel.
In addition, Mikhail Chlenov, president of the Jewish Cultural Association in Moscow, will assist the commission with his historian’s expertise.
According to Pisar, an international lawyer who is an adviser to French President Francois Mitterrand, three Western European leaders, Mitterrand, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, have each told Gorbachev they personally want to see the mystery surrounding Wallenberg solved.
Gorbachev responded by giving orders to have light cast on the subject, Pisar said.
Pisar, an American Jew who was also an adviser to the late President John Kennedy, will represent the United States on the Wallenberg investigation commission.
Irwin Cotler, a professor of law at McGill University in Montreal, will represent Canada, and Gideon Hausner, the Israeli lawyer who prosecuted Adolf Eichmann, will represent Israel.
Wallenberg is credited with saving some 100,000 Jews in Hungary from deportation to Nazi death camps in the final year of World War II, by sheltering them in the Swedish legation in Budapest and providing Swedish documents.
He was arrested by the Red Army when it entered Budapest in 1945 and has not been heard from since.
The Russians first disclaimed knowledge of his whereabouts. Later they said he died in a Soviet prison in 1947.
But persistent reports over the years from reliable sources said Wallenberg had been seen alive. His family and others believe he is.
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