VILNIUS, September 9 (RAPSI) - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has accepted the application of Lithuanian Socialist People's Front party leader Algirdas Paleckis, who was convicted of having denied the existence of "Soviet aggression against Lithuania and its people," the party's press service announced Monday.

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

In a radio interview, he discussed a tragic event at a TV tower in Vilnius on January 13, 1991, stating that "brothers shot at brothers." The prosecutor's office demanded that Paleckis should be placed on a 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."

Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990. However, the Soviet Union called the move illegal and imposed an economic blockade on the country between April and late June 1990. In January 1991, a series of unauthorized protests swept across Lithuania, which resulted in special Soviet troops entering the republic. On the night of January 13, a convoy of Soviet armored vehicles entered the center of Vilnius.

The troops clashed with civilians at a local TV tower. Fourteen people were killed and over 600 were injured as a result of the bloodshed.

One Soviet paratrooper was killed by friendly fire.