Canberra ‘failing’ in hunt for Nazis
Christopher Dore
October 03, 2005
AUSTRALIA has been slammed for failing to track down and prosecute “at least several hundred” Nazi war criminals believed to have found refuge here.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which is dedicated to finding suspected World War II criminals and helping prosecute them, says Australia has failed to do enough and needs to take “additional steps, urgently”.
“Australia remains the only major Western country of refuge which admitted at least several hundred Nazi war criminals and collaborators, which has hereto failed to take successful legal action against a single one,” the centre’s director, Efraim Zuroff, says in his annual report analysing the efforts of governments worldwide.
“Numerous attempts have been made … to convince the Australian authorities to adopt civil remedies — denaturalisation and/or deportation — to deal with Holocaust perpetrators in the country, but the Government has refused to do so.”
Australia’s position is in contrast to the US, which Dr Zuroff praises for launching dozens of investigations and managing to secure three prosecutions in the past 12 months.
Federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison signed an extradition request in July after the Simon Wiesenthal Centre tracked down Perth pensioner Charles Zentai, who stands accused of murdering a Jewish teenager while in the Hungarian army in Budapest in 1944.
Mr Zentai, who suffers poor health and is appealing against the extradition, was arrested just days after Senator Ellison agreed to the extradition request from Hungary. While Mr Zentai denies any wrongdoing, the Wiesenthal Centre names the 83-year-old as one of the world’s top 10 most-wanted Nazi war criminals.
Among the other most-wanted for war crimes during World War II is the infamous Alois Brunner, a key operative of Adolf Eichmann, who has found refuge in Syria.
Dr Zuroff says Canberra’s poor record in chasing Nazis who fled to Australia at the end of the war was exacerbated by the decision to shut down the special war crimes unit set up under the previous government.
“It is therefore extremely unlikely that they will be able to obtain any convictions while they continue to insist on prosecuting these suspects on criminal charges,” he says.
“This is particularly true in Australia, where all witnesses in such cases must appear in person, a factor which would make a successful prosecution next to impossible, given the country’s geographical distance from the scene of the crimes committed.”
Aside from Mr Zentai, the Wiesenthal Centre earlier this year also tracked down another Australian pensioner suspected of connections to the Nazis: Hungarian-born Melbourne man Lajos Polgar.
