ONE of the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals, Sandor
Kepiro, 97, goes on trial in Hungary on Thursday charged
with the murder of 36 people in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1942.
With the trial of another Nazi war criminal, Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, nearing
its end in Germany, Kepiro's trial could be one of the last
of its kind, says Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, who tracked down the former gendarmerie
officer in Budapest in 2006.
Nevertheless, "the
indictment of Kepiro sends a powerful message that the passage
of time does not diminish the guilt of the killers and that
old age should not protect those who committed such heinous
crimes," Zuroff said in a recent statement.
The trial offered a chance for justice
to finally be done "so that the people of Novi Sad and their families and the victims of the mass
murders carried out by the Hungarian forces in January 1942
... can finally achieve a measure of closure, even if it
is many years after the crimes."
The trial is scheduled to begin at the Budapest Municipal Court on Thursday,
with six days so far set aside for hearings in May.
But it is not yet clear how long the trial may last altogether or when a verdict
can be expected.
Kepiro topped the Wiesenthal list
of most wanted Nazi war criminals after proceedings started
against the 90-year-old John Demjanjuk.
In the case of Demjanjuk, who is being
tried in Munich for helping to kill 27,900 Jews during his
alleged time as a Nazi death camp guard, a verdict could
come as soon as May 12, although there have been several
delays, due mainly to the man's poor health.
Like Demjanjuk, Kepiro denies all
of the charges against him, insisting that he killed no one
and was only following orders. But he was already found guilty
of the crimes in Novi Sad as far back as 1944 in Hungary
and then again in 1946.
In 1944, a 10-year jail sentence against
him was quashed. He was sentenced again to 14 years in 1946,
this time under the communists, but did not serve any time
in prison, because he fled to Argentina where he remained
for half a century.
Zuroff at the Simon Wiesenthal Center
tracked him down in Budapest, where he has been living since
returning to Hungary on a Hungarian passport in 1996.
Kepiro was found using the centre's
Operation Last Chance program, which is co-managed by the
US-based Targum Shlishi foundation and is specifically aimed
at helping governments locate former Nazis war criminals
in Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Croatia and
in Baltic countries.
Kepiro, for his part, is suing Zuroff
for defamation, and the hearing for that case is scheduled
to take place on Tuesday.
Kepiro's defence is provided by the
National Legal Foundation, headed by Tamas Nagy Gaudi, a
member of parliament of the far-right Jobbik party.
The Wiesenthal Center's "most
wanted" list includes another Hungarian, Karoly (Charles) Zentai, now an Australian
citizen, who is accused of participating in the murder of
Jews in Budapest in 1944.
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