Toby Low , 1st Baron Aldington Toby Austin Richard William Low , 1st Baron Aldington , KCMG , CBE , DSO , TD , DL , PC , ( 25 May 1914 – 7 December 2000 ) , was a British Conservative Party politician and businessman best known for his alleged role in Operation Keelhaul , the forced repatriation of Russian , Ukrainian and other prisoners of war to the Soviet Union where many were executed . Life . He was the son of Colonel Stuart Low , who died in action in 1942 , and Lucy Atkin , daughter of the Lord Atkin . He was educated at Winchester College ( where he later became Warden ) , and at New College , Oxford . He qualified as a barrister in 1939 . He had joined the Rangers ( King ' s Royal Rifle Corps ) , a famous London Territorial Infantry Regiment , in 1934 and served in World War II in Greece , Crete , Egypt , Libya , Tunisia , Italy and Austria , becoming a Brigadier in 1944 . He was the youngest Brigadier in the British Army at that time . He worked in Europe following the German surrender and was amongst those responsible for the Betrayal of the Cossacks . He was appointed to the Distinguished Service Order in 1941 , made a Commander of the Legion of Merit ( USA ) and awarded the Croix de Guerre . Low stood for Parliament in the 1945 general election , and won the seat of Blackpool North . He served as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Supply 1951 - 54 and Minister of State at the Board of Trade from 1954 , becoming a Privy Counsellor . In 1957 , he was knighted and became chair of the Select Committee on nationalised industry . In 1959 , he became deputy Conservative Party chairman . In 1962 he was created Baron Aldington , of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool , and increased his business interests , serving as the chairman of several companies . He had been a director of the family banking company , Grindlays Bank , in 1946 , following his father and grandfather . In 1964 , Lord Aldington became Chairman of the bank as well as of GEC . In 1971 , he joined the BBC general advisory council , and became chairman of Sun - Alliance and the Port of London Authority . In 1972 , he became co - chairman , with Jack Jones , of the joint special committee on the ports industry . He became chairman of Westland in 1977 . Lord Aldington was considered a One Nation Conservative and supported British involvement in the European Union . He continued political activities in the House of Lords , including as chairman of the Lords ' select committee on overseas trade . He was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent . In 1999 , when hereditary peers were excluded from the House of Lords by the House of Lords Act 1999 , as a hereditary peer of first creation he was granted a life peerage as Baron Low , of Bispham in the County of Lancashire , so that he could remain . Family . Aldington married Felicité Ann Araminta MacMichael ( d . 2012 ) ( a daughter of Sir Harold MacMichael ) on 10 April 1947 . They had two daughters , Priscilla Jane Stephanie , Lady Roberts , Lucy Ann Anthea , and a son , Charles Low , 2nd Baron Aldington . Libel case . In 1989 Lord Aldington initiated and won a record £1 . 5million ( plus £500 , 000 costs ) in a libel case against Count Nikolai Tolstoy and Nigel Watts , who had accused him of war crimes in Austria during his involvement in the Betrayal of the Cossacks at Lienz , part of Operation Keelhaul at the end of the Second World War . This award , which bankrupted Tolstoy , was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights in July 1995 as " " not necessary in a democratic society " " . Tolstoy had written several books ( " Victims of Yalta " in 1977 , " Stalin ' s Secret War " in 1981 , " The Minister and the Massacres " in 1986 ) about the alleged complicity of British politicians and officers with Joseph Stalin ' s forces in the murder of White Russian exiles from Soviet Rule , Cossacks , Croatian para - military and civilian fugitives from Tito , as well as 11 , 000 Slovenian anticommunist fighters . Nigel Watts , who was in a business dispute with one of Lord Aldington ' s former companies , used this information to further his own cause , printing 10 , 000 leaflets about Aldington ' s role in the matter and circulating them to politicians and other figures . Count Tolstoy insisted on being sued alongside Watts and , despite two efforts by Aldington to avoid this , fought the issue hard with the support of some senior members of the Conservative Party , including the Leader of the House of Lords , Lord Cranborne , and international public figures ranging from Nigel Nicolson and Graham Greene to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn . Lord Aldington meanwhile had the assistance of the government , Sun - Alliance and the Conservative Party , so that the case became something of a 9 - week civil war between Margaret Thatcher ' s Government and dissident elements within the Conservative Party . Nigel Watts was jailed for 18 months in April 1995 , after repeating the libel that Aldington was a war criminal in a pamphlet . For seven years after Aldington won his initial judgement , Tolstoy appealed to 15 courts in Britain and Europe , before finally winning a judgement in the European Court of Human Rights in 1995 that the size of the award ( £1 . 5 million ) , combined with Aldington ' s huge legal costs , and Tolstoy ' s consequent bankruptcy , violated Tolstoy ' s right to freedom of expression . Following the judgement libel awards fell dramatically , and since the passing of the Human Rights Act it forms part of English defamation law . In 1996 the Court of Appeal upheld an order Aldington had obtained that made lawyers acting for Tolstoy pro bono parties to the case , and thereby jointly liable with Tolstoy for any costs or damages awarded to Aldington . This order was combined with a requirement that Tolstoy underwrite the cost of Aldington ' s defence in order to obtain leave to appeal .