Operation Keelhaul was a forced repatriation of Soviet citizens and members of the Soviet Army in the West to the Soviet Union after World War II. While forced repatriation focused on Soviet Armed Forces POWs of Germany and Russian Liberation Army members, it included many other people under Allied control. Refoulement, the forced repatriation of people in danger of persecution, is a human rights violation and breach of international law. Thus Operation Keelhaul would have been called a war crime under modern international humanitarian law, especially in regards to the many civilians forced into Soviet work camps, many of whom had never been Soviet citizens, having fled Russia before the end of the Russian Civil War.
Baron Aldington, of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 29 January 1962 for the Conservative politician and businessman, Sir Toby Low. On 16 November 1999 he was made a life peer as Baron Low, of Bispham in the County of Lancashire, as were all hereditary peers of the first creation following the House of Lords Act 1999. On his death in 2000 the life peerage became extinct while he was succeeded in the hereditary barony by his son Charles, the second and present holder of the title.
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers.Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister. With the exception of the Dukedom of Edinburgh awarded for life to Prince Edward in 2023, all life peerages conferred since 2009 have been created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 with the rank of baron and entitle their holders to sit and vote in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as age and citizenship. The legitimate children of a life peer appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958 are entitled to style themselves with the prefix "The Honourable", although they cannot inherit the peerage itself. Prior to 2009, life peers of baronial rank could also be so created under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 for senior judges.
Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky, known as Nikolai Tolstoy, is a British monarchist and historian. He is a former parliamentary candidate of the UK Independence Party and is the current nominal head of the House of Tolstoy, a Russian noble family.
Desmond James Conrad Ackner, Baron Ackner, was a British judge and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
Michael Anthony Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft, is a British-Belizean businessman, pollster and politician. He is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. Ashcroft founded Michael A. Ashcroft Associates in 1972 and was` the 132nd richest person in the UK, as ranked by the Sunday Times Rich List 2021, with an estimated fortune of £1.257 billion.
The Ditchley Foundation is a foundation that holds conferences, with a primary focus on British-American relations. Based at Ditchley Park near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, it was established as a privately funded charity in 1958 by philanthropist Sir David Wills. Its current Director is James Arroyo,.
Sir David Cozens-Hardy Hirst was an English barrister and judge who served as a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1992 to 1999. The Times described him as "one of the leading advocates of his generation".
The repatriation of the Cossacks or betrayal of the Cossacks occurred when Cossacks, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who were opposed to the Soviet Union and fought for Nazi Germany, were handed over by British and American forces to the Soviet Union after the conclusion of World War II. Towards the end of the European theatre of World War II, many Cossacks forces with civilians in tow, retreated to Western Europe. Their goal was to avoid capture and imprisonment by the Red Army for treason, and hoped for a better outcome by surrendering to the Western Allies, such as to the British and Americans. However, after being taken prisoner by the Allies, they were packed into small trains. Unbeknownst to them, they were sent east to Soviet territories. Many men, women and children were subsequently sent to the Gulag prison camps, where some were brutally worked to death. The repatriations were agreed upon at the Yalta Conference; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed that the prisoners were Soviet citizens as of 1939, although there were many of them that had left the country before or soon after the end of the Russian Civil War or had been born abroad, hence never holding Soviet citizenship.
Sir Alfred William Michael Davies was a British barrister who served as a High Court Judge from 1973 to 1991. He was one of the first judges appointed specifically to hear defamation cases, one of the few areas of civil law in England in which a jury remains the tribunal of fact, and was in charge of managing the list of libel cases from 1988 to 1991.
Charles Harold Stuart Low, 2nd Baron Aldington, is a British peer, the son of Toby Low, 1st Baron Aldington. He succeeded to the Barony on 7 December 2000.
Frank Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman of Knutsford,, known as Boyd Merriman, was a British Conservative politician and judge.
Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.
Victims of Yalta or The Secret Betrayal is a 1977 book by Nikolai Tolstoy that chronicles the fate of Soviet citizens who had been under German control during World War II and at its end fallen into the hands of the Western Allies. According to the secret Moscow agreement from 1944 that was confirmed at the 1945 Yalta conference, all citizens of the Soviet Union were to be repatriated without choice—a death sentence for many by execution or extermination through labour.
Guy Vaughan Black, Baron Black of Brentwood is Deputy Chairman of the Telegraph Media Group.
Geoffrey Robert James Borwick, 5th Baron Borwick, is a British businessman, hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords.
George Morgan Magan, Baron Magan of Castletown, is a Conservative member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. He comes from an Anglo-Irish family, and is the son of the late Brigadier Bill Magan, who served as a director at MI5. He was educated at Winchester College and then became a Chartered Accountant.
Quentin Gerard Carew Wallop, 10th Earl of Portsmouth,, styled Viscount Lymington in 1984, is a British peer and current head of the Wallop family.
Peter Andrew Cruddas, Baron Cruddas is an English banker and businessman. He is the founder of online trading company CMC Markets. In the 2007 Sunday Times Rich List, he was named the richest man in the City of London, with an estimated fortune of £860 million. As of March 2012, Forbes estimated his wealth at $1.3 billion, equivalent to £830 million at the time.
The Minister and the Massacres (1986) is a history written by Nikolai Tolstoy about the 1945 repatriations of Croatian soldiers and civilians and Cossacks, who had crossed into Austria seeking refuge from the Red Army and Partisans who had taken control in Yugoslavia. He criticized the British repatriation of collaborationist troops to Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav government, attributing the decisions to Harold Macmillan, then UK minister of the Mediterranean, and Lord Aldington. Tolstoy is among historians who say numerous massacres of such soldiers took place after their repatriation. His conclusions about leading British officials were criticized in turn.
