Roman Rudenko

Roman Rudenko Рома́н Руде́нко
Rudenko on a 2015 Russian stamp
Procurator General of the Soviet Union
In office 1 July 1953 – 23 January 1981
Premier	Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin Nikita Khrushchev Alexei Kosygin Nikolai Tikhonov
Preceded by	Gregory Safonov
Succeeded by	Alexander Rekunkov
Personal details
Born	(1907-07-30)30 July 1907 Nosivka, Chernihiv Oblast, Russian Empire
Died	23 January 1981(1981-01-23) (aged 73) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Profession	Lawyer, civil servant

Roman Andriyovych Rudenko (Template:Lang-uk, Template:Lang-ru, 30 July 1907 – 23 January 1981) was a Ukrainian Soviet lawyer. He was the prosecutor of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953 and Chief prosecutor of the entire Soviet Union after 1953. He is also well known for acting as the Soviet Chief Prosecutor at the main trial of the major Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials and Chief Prosecutor at the Trial of the Sixteen. He held military rank as a Lt.General at the time he served at Nuremberg.

Rudenko was also one of the chief commandants of NKVD special camp Nr. 7, a former Nazi concentration camp, until its closure in 1950. Of the 60,000 prisoners incarcerated there under his supervision, 12,500 died due to malnutrition and disease.

After Lavrentiy Beria's arrest in 1953, Rudenko was the judge of his trial in which Beria was sentenced to death.

Rudenko acted as the Procurator General of the Soviet Union in Gary Powers's espionage trial.

In 1961 Rudenko was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1972 he was awarded the Soviet honorary title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Further reading

• Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1984, ISBN 0-88184-032-7
• Александр Звягинцев. Руденко. Молодая гвардия, 2007 г. ISBN 978-5-235-03081-7