The court hearing of 97-year-old WWII war-crimes suspect Sandor Kepiro, which had been suspended over a week ago, resumed on Thursday after the judge accepted the opinion of doctors that the suspect was fit for trial in connection with raids in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad in 1942, MTI's correspondent reported.
Wheelchair-bound Kepiro had been equipped with a new hearing aid so that he could properly follow proceedings, his lawyer said. The judge, Bela Varga, told the courtroom that Kepiro was mentally and physically fit to stand trial.
But he ordered twice-daily court sessions to be shortened to 45 minutes each, as well as quieter conditions so that Kepiro could follow proceedings.
The judge read out confessions from 1948 of Lieutenant Janos Nagy made in a courtroom in Szeged, implicating Kepiro in the execution of 30 civilians in Novi Sad. He said that the first- and second-degree verdicts relating to Nagy, as well as all the documents themselves, had been discovered, and from these it could be seen that Nagy had received a sentence of first-degree murder, not only for participating in the execution of 30 people but for murdering a Serbian priest, among other actions. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment before being released.
In 1981, the year of his death, Nagy said he had met Kepiro on the third day of the January 1942 raid. Kepiro told him they should go to the town for an inspection tour because their superiors were not satisfied with the results of the raid, and gave them instructions to use weapons.
En-route, they came across 30 prisoners who, according to Nagy's confession, were grouped together by Kepiro's men. The former gendarmerie captain ordered the driver of a van to take the prisoners to the Danube embankment, the site of the execution, while Nagy was to accompany them. He said he had also obeyed Kepiro's order to execute the prisoners. This fact was then reported to Kepiro, who took note of what was reported.

"It's nothing but a lie," Kepiro said in reply to the judge's request for him to comment. "I did not order anyone to be killed," he said, insisting that he not known Nagy.

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