A 97-year-old Hungarian man accused of perpetrating a massacre of civilians in
Serbia during World War II is undergoing a
trial in Budapest.
Sandor
Kepiro, who was named as the world's most
wanted Nazi war crimes suspect by the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, is being charged with responsibility
for the rounding up and mass murder of more
than 36 Jewish, Serb and Roma civilians over
three days in the city of Novi Sad in the
northern Serbian province of Vojvodina.
Thousands more people are believed to have been killed during that massacre.
Specifically, he is accused of "complicity in war crimes.”
According
to media reports, Hungarians, who were allies
of Nazi Germany, seized hundreds of families
in Novi Sad in January 1942 , taken to the
banks of the Danube River and then shot them
to death or threw them alive into the frozen
river. The killings were apparently revenge
for earlier attacks by partisans.
One
witness to the massacre, Lea Ljubibratic,
told reporters that people were "thrown into the river under the ice. They would take people from their houses
and shoot them in the street."
Kepiro was actually convicted of being involved in the Novi Sad killings by a
court in Hungary in 1944, but his conviction
was overturned. He was again convicted in
1946, by which time Hungary was ruled by Communists,
but he somehow escaped to Argentina.
Reportedly, he returned to Hungary in 1996 and was ultimately located by the
Simon Wiesenthal Center ten years later.
Kepiro
told reporters in court that he is "completely innocent" and lambasted the trial as a "circus". After entering the court with the aid of a walking stick, he took a seat and
held up a printed sheet of paper which stated: "Murderers of a 97-year-old man!"
"I
am innocent and I am here on trumped-up charges," he said in court. "This trial is a terrible thing. There is no basis to this, everything is based
on lies. The charges are lies, all lies. I
knew nothing of the massacres. The soldiers
told me nothing."
Kepiro
has earlier sued the director of the Wiesenthal
Center, Efraim Zuroff, for defamation, for
calling him a ‘war criminal.” But that suit
was dismissed.
While
admitting he was present at Novi Sad at the
time of the massacre as a gendarme captain
in Hungary's fascist forces,
Kepiro
claims he merely helped to arrest civilians,
and took no part in the killings.
"It's
clear that this is one of the last major trials
of Holocaust-era war criminal suspects," Zuroff told reporters. "This is the first trial of a Hungarian war criminal and since Hungary has collaborated
with Nazi Germany, it's very important it
takes place. There can be no clemency, no
sympathy and no ignoring of the facts."
Aside
from Zuroff, Serbian war crimes prosecutor
Vladimir Vukcevic and Jewish representatives
of Novi Sad are also attending the trial.
"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.
“Justice
will be done so that the people of Novi Sad
and the families of the victims "can finally achieve a measure of closure, even if it is many years after the
crimes.”
Outside
the court, about 30 people demonstrated, wearing
yellow Stars of David and holding up posters
which said: "How do you sleep Mr. Kepiro?" and "Murder has no age".
Zuroff
added that: "I hope ultimately [Kepiro] will be convicted and punished. It's very important,
especially in Hungarian society, seeing the
problem it faces with extreme right, racism
and anti-Roma sentiment. The important message
is that racism and xenophobia often leads
to murder and the best way to deal with it
is a trial. Even decades afterwards.”
Boris
Kopilovic, a member of the Jewish community
in Vojvodina, told reporters: "We all hope justice will be served. They have to be brought to justice, it's
not important how old, or what medical condition
they are in."
Kepiro
defense is provided by the National Legal
Foundation, which is led by Tamas Nagy Gaudi,
a member of parliament for Hungary’s extreme-right
Jobbik party.
ibtimes.com
|