The Simon Wiesenthal Center severely criticized the decision issued today by a Lithuanian court not to punish former Security Police operative Algimantas Dailide after it convicted him of actively participating in the persecution of innocent civilians – Jews and Poles – during the Holocaust.
In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center labeled the decision not to implement the verdict of 5 years imprisonment as one “which clearly shows that Lithuania is the safest haven in the world for a local Nazi war criminal and makes a mockery of the efforts to hold Nazi war criminals accountable.”
According to Zuroff:
“Once again Lithuania has proven that it is totally incapable of punishing its own Nazi war criminals. The Dailide case will now be added to those of Dailide’s superiors in the Saugumas (Lithuanian Security Police) of the Vilnius district, Aleksandras Lileikis and Kazys Gimzauskas, who despite active participation in Nazi war crimes never sat a single minute in jail for their crimes, as unequivocal proof that Lithuania is totally incapable of honestly dealing with the complicity of its own nationals in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry. The reasons adduced for clemency in this case – his wife’s health and his advanced age – ring utterly hollow in the case of a person who had no sympathy for his unfortunate victims.”
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