Germany
refuses to extradite unpunished SS executioner to Netherlands.
A petition signed by 150 Israeli lawyers and presented to
Israeli Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman on Wednesday called
upon the Israeli government to urge Germany to take legal
action against an unpunished SS executioner living in Bavaria.
Klaas Faber was sentenced to death in Holland for a number of murders carried
out when he was an SS officer, but he escaped to Germany
in 1952, where he has lived ever since. The Dutch government
requested that Faber be extradited several times, so that
he could serve his sentence, which had been commuted in the
late 1940s to life in prison.
“The protection that German law accords
this convicted war criminal, enabling him to live untroubled
in Germany is an affront to law and human values, and by
its belittling of the enormity of the holocaust’s crimes,
provides a harmful message to modern society," said David Schonberg, the Israeli lawyer that organized the petition. "We expect our government to take a more active role in the efforts to bring Nazi
war criminals to justice."
The petition was submitted in support
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's efforts to enlist the Israeli
government's support in the Faber case. The organization
has also called upon the Israeli government to urge Germany
to cancel the "Fuhrer befehl law," which grants German citizenship to non-German Nazi collaborators and protects
them from extradition to their countries of origin to face
prosecution.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, The Wiesenthal
Center's chief Nazi-hunter said: "Germany's failure hereto to put Faber on trial or return him to Holland are a
travesty which must be corrected as quickly as possible,
while justice can still be achieved."
The petition also has the support
of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust survivors and
Yad Vashem.
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