Roman Rudenko

Roman Andriyovych Rudenko (Ukrainian: Роман Андрійович Руденко, Russian: Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко, 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, at least 12,000 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.