The family of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, has petitioned a Moscow court for the opening of the KGB archives to find out whether Wallenberg died from a heart attack in prison, as the heads of the Soviet Union claimed, or was executed by the KGB, as claimed by several eyewitnesses.
Wallenberg disappeared in January 1945 after the Red Army conquered Budapest. In 1957, the Soviet authorities announced that Wallenberg had died at the Lubyanka prison, which was also the headquarters of the KGB at the time, as a result of a heart attack on 17 July 1947. However, Wallenberg's family refused to accept the announcement and wants to examine in particular the claims of historians that there was an inmate in the Lubyanka prison referred to as "prisoner number 7," who was interrogated six days after the announcement of Wallenberg's death, and that "Prisoner Number 7" was Wallenberg himself, who was still alive. The family also cited a statement by a head of a Russian investigation committee that examined the Wallenberg mystery, and claimed in 2000 that "it is very possible that Wallenberg was executed by KGB agents in prison in 1947."