Siobhán: “It’s been close to seventy years.
Why on earth are we bothering to hunt down an aged pensioner,
just to prosecute him for … what?”
Liam: “That’s why.”
An exchange heard at a dinner conversation in a St Kilda
bar, in Melbourne, June 2010, between two Gen Y’s,
while watching the FIFA World Cup
When it comes to asking if some of our current laws (drafted
a long, long time ago) serve any useful purpose today, Canberra
legislators could do worse than heed an old Hungarian proverb:
Jobb kétszer kérdezni, mint egyszer hibázni,
which means “(that) it is better to ask twice, than
to err once”.
Today he is an 88-year old pensioner, known as Mr Charles
Zentai. But in 1944, it is claimed he was 23-year-old Hungarian
Arrow Cross Ensign Károly Zentai (also known as Károly
Steiner). And he is believed to be guilty of murdering an
18-year-old boy in the Hungarian capital of Budapest.
Last Friday he had his day in court. Actually it was one
of many such days. And unless Australia’s Prime Minister
Julia Gillard intervenes or Hungary’s Prime Minister
Viktor Orban takes time out from eating dobosh at Gerbeaud,
one of Budapest’s finest cafes, Australians will never
know the truth. And relatives of a tortured, beaten and murdered
Hungarian teenager, 18-year-old Péter Balázs
will never taste justice.
Furthermore Australia, for all its virtues will continue
to carry an obscene moniker on its back: that, due to disinterest
from a series of post war governments, Australia has become
a safe haven for the most wicked of men, whose involvement
in unspeakable crimes against humanity, including acts by
Hitler’s Nazis (and their collaborators), genocidal
maniacs from Cambodia, North Korea, Rwanda, and Sudan continue
to pollute our cities. And our wholesale apathy is to blame.
The conduct of many such arrivals is, at the least, worthy
of careful examination and in some cases, should merit incarceration,
denaturalisation and extradition.
Last Friday we learned a few things. Few of them pleasant.
We learned that an 88-year-old resident of Willetton in Perth,
wanted for questioning in Hungary for the alleged murder
and torture of the Jewish teenager during World War II, successfully
appealed his extradition.
It was claimed that an officer of the Royal Hungarian Army,
Ensign Károly Zentai was stationed at the Aréna
Road military barracks in Budapest in 1944. In October of
1944, Hungary’s equivalent of Nazi Schutzstaffel the
Arrow Cross, had assumed power and under the leadership of
Fredrick Szálasi, was given free rein to ratchet up
the maltreatment of the Jews.
Zentai’s fellow officer was Ensign Lajos Nagy. Both
soldiers reported to Captain Bela Máder. After the
war, Nagy and Máder were tried for the murder of 18-year
old Péter Balázs. Both were found guilty, Máder
in 1946, Nagy a year later. The former was sentenced to forced
labour for life, while the latter received life imprisonment.
Evidence tendered at these trials motivated the Hungarian
authorities to charge Károly Zentai with the same
crime but, by then he was in Germany, en route to Perth.
Although he claims to have still been living in Hungary.
Go figure.
Australian historian Ruth Balint recalls that at his trial,
Ensign Nagy told of how, under the orders of Captain Máder,
Ensign Zentai regularly went out on patrols to perform identity
checks and herd Jews for interrogation. According to Nagy,
Zentai already knew Péter Balázs, both having
grown in Budafok, a village outside of Budapest. Károly
was roughly five years older than Péter. Péter
was surviving on his wits and false identity papers. On November
8, 1944, Zentai recognised the boy on a city tram and arrested
him for the crime of not wearing the yellow star.
Following the arrest, the lad was taken to the Aréna
Road barracks. Nagy and Zentai (allegedly) beat the young
Péter to a pulp. At Nagy’s trial, several former
prisoners testified that at least half a dozen of them were
taken to Captain Máder’s rooms where they were
shown a boy lying on the floor. It was clear that the boy
was dying. The officers present confirmed the body on the
cell floor was that of Peter Balázs.
Witnesses a plenty, according to Ruth Balint, described
the brutalities endured while at the Aréna Road barracks.
There are various references to Zentai’s regular participation
in these beatings. One, Imre Zoltan, testified that in 1944,
while in Budapest as a forced labourer, he was arrested and
taken to the barracks “where at Béla Máder’s
orders, Károly Zentai and Ferenc Érsek beat
me up for hours with boxing gloves until I lost consciousness”.
Other witnesses make similar claims concerning the pensioner
from Perth.
On the night in question, November 8, 1944, József
Monori, another officer assigned to the barracks, reported
that he heard beatings going on behind closed doors; was
woken up at around 11pm and told to harness a horse and carriage,
where Nagy and Zentai brought down a corpse from the office,
put it on the cart … and after a short ride to the
banks of the Danube, the corpse was quickly dumped into the
river. The three waited until the body sank due to the weights
attached. The body was that of Peter Balázs.
Last Friday the Australian Federal Court found that the
Home Affairs Minister's extradition decision was beyond his
jurisdiction. After all, Hungary has not charged Zentai with
anything. It merely wants to question him. Judge Neil McKerracher
elaborated that a war crime was not “a qualifying extradition
offence” for which Mr Zentai could be surrendered for
extradition.
If the judge did not err in his decision then, Canberra,
we have a problem. What will we do when, say, ASIO suspects
that war criminals, say from Sudan - involved in the genocide
of non Muslims - are living peacefully in Melbourne’s
outer suburbs? Or former commanders of Myanmar’s forced
labour camps are clicking up their heels in Sydney’s
leafy upper north shore? Will Australia continue to offer
a haven and archaic laws as a reply to a foreign government’s
extradition request? Surely it’s time to renovate the
law.
Unimpressed with the Home Affairs Minister’s behaviour,
His Honour also found the Minister failed to properly consider
that it would be "oppressive and incompatible with humanitarian
considerations" to surrender Mr Zentai for extradition
due to his age, ill health and the severity of sentence he
faced. In short, even if Zentai could be extradited on the
evidence presented, he shouldn’t be. After all, the
message is clear: while age may not weary him, it will protect
him from having to explain himself.
It was Baroness Thatcher who once articulated, "(that)
if you have nothing else you have your principles." It’s
advice Prime Minister Gillard would be wise to heed.
A leader, especially a new one like Prime Minister Julia
Gillard, is beset by an array of issues, mostly domestic,
with schools of sharks - from her left and her right - circling
her office, smelling for the slightest hint of blood in the
water.
Doubtless, Julia Gillard has principles too. Now, because
she has been shoehorned into the Prime Minister’s office,
it’s up to her to restore the electorate’s faith
in Labor, starting by restoring our faith in a host of institutions,
including border security, superannuation and our legal system.
Having addressed the first two in record time, she can now
concentrate on the travesty concerning our legal system by
focusing on Charles Zentai.
Media reports have been scant when informing the public
on Charles Zentai. Unsurprising really. It’s true that
some don’t give a hoot what happens to him. Then again,
some are at a loss as to why His Honour found that the Minister
of Home Affairs could not place the aged pensioner on the
first plane to Budapest’s Ferihegy International Airport.
To date, the Hungarians merely want to question Mr. Zentai.
Must they elevate the request to a charge so that he can
be extradited? Is the Australian law in this case too restrictive
and thereby not serving the interest of justice? If His Honour
was correct in his decision, should the existing law be changed
and done so retrospectively? What is the downside and what
is the upside of such a change?
What lessons are we teaching today’s young? What concept
of justice are we handing down? What notion of memory are
we transmitting to the next generation? After 70 years, is
justice possible? Is it at all even relevant?
Atrocities, regardless of where they were committed, must
be remembered. Because the burial of memory leads to contempt
for justice. And contempt for justice can only lead to one
place.
onlineopinion.com.au
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