VILNIUS, May 11 (Reuters) - A Lithuanian court on Wednesday sentenced Latvian Konstantin Mikhailov to life in prison for his part in the killing of police and customs officers 20 years ago during the break up of the Soviet Union.
The killings were one of the bloodiest episodes in Lithuania's struggle with Moscow loyalists to regain control of its borders after parliament declared independence from the former Soviet Union in March 1990.
Prosecutors in the Vilnius regional court said eight Lithuania officers were shot at close range using guns with silencers in the early hours of July 31, 1991 at the border checkpoint with Belarus. All but one were killed.
Mikhailov, 43, a former member of Soviet special militia OMON, and who has been in detention since 2007, had denied any involvement.
"I am happy to see ... that the truth prevails sooner or later," Tomas Sernas, the only survivor of the incident, was quoted as saying by the Baltic news agency BNS.
Two other members of Riga-based OMON, who are suspected of taking part in the killings, fled to Russia. Moscow has refused to extradite them, prosecutors said.
In a separate statement on Wednesday, the general prosecutor's office said it had asked Russia to question the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev about the killing by Soviet troops of 14 civilians on Jan. 13, 1991 in Vilnius.
"We want him to be questioned as a witness for now," a spokeswoman for the general prosecutor's office told Reuters.
Prosecutors said they had identified 23 suspects living in Russia and Belarus, but Moscow and Minsk had refused to extradite them.
Recent amendments to Lithuanian law should allow foreigners to be tried in absentia for war crimes or crimes against humanity, the prosecutor's office added in a statement. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis)
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