SHORT TAKES : Tolstoy Kin Drops Libel Appeal

Count Nikolai Tolstoy said Thursday that he will abandon his appeal against a libel award because he cannot afford to post a deposit required by the Court of Appeal.

Tolstoy had sought to overturn the record award of $2.7 million to Lord Aldington, whom Tolstoy had accused of war crimes during World War II.

Three judges of the Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Tolstoy’s appeal had little chance of success, and that if he wished to proceed he must deposit $226,000 within 14 days as security for Aldington’s costs.

“I cannot possibly raise that kind of money within 14 days, so this is the end of the legal road,” said Tolstoy, author of the book “Victims of Yalta” and a descendant of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Nikolai Tolstoy wrote a pamphlet that accused Aldington of arranging to hand over 70,000 Cossacks and anti-Titoist Yugoslavs to their Communist enemies, knowing they faced torture or death. Aldington served in the Eighth Army V Corps in southern Austria at the close of World War II.

Lord Justice Beldam, one of the justices hearing the case, said Tolstoy’s interpretation of documents “lacked in many instances the intellectual objectivity and reasoned impartiality upon which his reputation is based.

“That he failed to convince the jury of the charges against Lord Aldington was amply demonstrated by its unprecedented and enormous award.”

The appeal judges refused Tolstoy permission to appeal to the House of Lords. They also ordered him to pay the estimated $39,800 costs of the Court of Appeal hearings.