A Jewish organization that tracks down Nazi war criminals has slammed Estonia 's judiciary as inept and corrupt after the Baltic state's prosecutor dropped a case against an Estonian businessman accused of murdering Jews in World War II.

 "The conclusions of the Estonian investigation of suspected Nazi war criminal Harry Mannil are a pathetic political whitewash and we categorically reject the prosecutors' assessments of the case," Efraim Zuroff, the Israeli director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center , said in a statement released in Tallinn .

 "Mannil should be held accountable for his role in the fate of Estonian civilians persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and their Estonian collaborators," Zuroff said.

 "The Estonian investigation of Mannil is a pathetic whitewash for political reasons of an active Nazi collaborator who, thanks to the ineptitude or corruption of the Estonian prosecution, will apparently never be held accountable for his crimes," Zuroff said.

 " Estonia lacks the political will to prosecute a prominent Estonian," he added.

  Jews killed

 The Wiesenthal Center has accused Mannil, now 85 and resident in Venezuela , of murdering 100 civilians, mostly Jews, between 1941 and 1942 when he worked in the Estonian and German security forces during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic state.

 But after a five-year investigation, Estonian prosecutors on Friday dropped a case, saying their probe turned up no evidence to implicate Mannil in war crimes and that his hands were "clean of blood."

 "It is obvious that Estonia , which has failed to convict a single local Nazi war criminal since it regained its independence, still lacks the political courage to face the practical implications of the active complicity of its nationals in Holocaust crimes," Zuroff said.

 The Center also termed “absolutely outrageous” the statement made last Friday by Estonian state prosecutor Heino Tonismagi who, according to the Estonian media, accused the Wiesenthal Center of purposely targeting Mannil (a multimillionaire philanthropist) since he was “one of the most outstanding Estonians,” and absolved the Estonian authorities of any crimes since the country was occupied at the time. 

Article published by arrangement with European Jewish Press , a pan-European news agency based in Belgium

Ynetnews, 4.01.06