VILNIUS, July 18 (RAPSI) - Lithuanian Socialist People's Front party leader Algirdas Paleckis convicted for having denied the fact of "Soviet aggression against Lithuania and its people" has filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights.

He asked to verify if Lithuanian courts have violated some articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) stipulating in particular free expression rights.

Paleckis was the first person in Lithuanian history to be charged with denying Soviet aggression, a crime stipulated in the Criminal Code.

In a radio interview, he discussed the tragic event at a TV tower in Vilnius on January 13, 1991, stating that "brothers shot at brothers." The prosecutor's office demanded to place Paleckis on one-year probation for the statement, but he was later acquitted.

A Vilnius district court later ruled that Paleckis had been acquitted groundlessly and fined him after considering the appeal submitted by the prosecutors.
Paleckis paid the fine, but appealed the ruling in the Lithuanian Supreme Court.

In January, the Lithuanian Supreme Court has upheld a lower court's conviction of Paleckis for having denied the fact of "Soviet aggression against Lithuania and its people."

"I am cautiously optimistic about the future of this case. However, the decision of the prosecutors and the courts concerning my words was ill-proportioned. And the right to freedom of expression was obviously prejudiced, though Lithuania had signed European Convention on Human Rights," Paleckis told RIA Novosti

The application was filed two days ago, Paleckis said.