PERTH, Australia — An alleged Nazi collaborator wanted in Hungary in the torture killing of a Jewish teenager in 1944 won an appeal Friday against extradition from his adopted country of Australia.

Charles Zentai, 88, is suspected by the Hungarian government of being one of three men who tortured and killed a Jewish teenager in Budapest in 1944 for failing to wear a star identifying him as a Jew.

Zentai, who migrated to Australia in 1950 and later became a citizen, says he is innocent and was not even in Budapest at the time.

Hungary issued a warrant for his arrest in 2005, and after a long legal process Australian Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor late last year approved a request to send Zentai back to face trial.

Zentai and his family appealed the decision to Australia's second-highest court, the Federal Court, and on Friday Judge Neil McKerracher ruled in his favor.

McKerracher ruled that O'Connor was not authorized to approve the extradition because Hungary's accusations against Zentai fell short of what are required under Australian law to justify sending him out of Australia.

"The act permits the extradition of people accused of an offense, not suspected of an offense," McKerracher said in his judgment. "To surrender a person for extradition when those basic requirements are not satisfied is beyond (the) power" of the minister, he said.

The government did not immediately comment on the ruling.

After O'Connor approved the extradition last November, Hungary said it would wait until all of Zentai's avenues of appeal had been exhausted before taking any further steps.

An Australian court ruled in 2008 that Zentai was eligible for extradition, but his poor health has kept him out of custody. He appealed the court's decision in March 2009 and again in October 2009 and lost both times.

Zentai is listed by the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights group, among its 10 most wanted suspected former Nazi war criminals for having "participated in manhunts, persecution, and murder of Jews in Budapest in 1944."

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