The European Court of Human Rights ruled earlier on Monday that Latvia had not broken international law by charging Russian World War II partisan Vasiliy Kononov, 87, with war crimes over attacks in Nazi-occupied Latvia in 1944.

The ruling by the court's Grand Chamber overturned an earlier decision by the regular court in 2008 that Latvia's decision to try Kononov in 2004 on war crimes charges was illegal.

"By ruling out Latvia's responsibility... the Grand Chamber of the court has practically agreed with those who try to reassess the results of the Second World War and to whitewash the Nazis and their accomplices," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The decision of the members of the Court in the case of Mr. Kononov seriously damages the credibility of the Council of Europe in general and may be viewed as an attempt to draw new dividing lines in Europe," the statement said.

Kononov, a Latvian who was granted Russian citizenship in 2000, was convicted in April 2004 of murdering Latvian civilians during the war and was sentenced to a year and eight months in jail.

The case outraged many Russians, who saw him as a brave partisan fighting the Nazi armies that devastated the Soviet Union. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Kononov occasional notes, such as one to wish him a happy new year.

Kononov was part of a group of partisans who raided and burned homes in a Latvian village after they found weapons supplied by Germany there. In all, nine people were killed — six men and three women, one of whom was heavily pregnant.

Kononov said the victims were all Nazi collaborators who had handed 12 partisans, including women and a child, to the Germans. Challenging the Latvian ruling, he argued that his actions did not amount to a crime at the time.

The judges on Monday did not agree, ruling by 14 votes to 3 against Kononov, the rights court said in a statement.

"There had been a sufficiently clear legal basis, having regard to the state of international law in 1944, for the applicant's conviction and punishment for war crimes," the ruling said.