BUDAPEST, Hungary — A prosecutor on Tuesday called the acquittal of a 97-year-old
man “unfounded” and said he would appeal the ruling that
cleared the Hungarian of war crimes charges in connection
with a World War II-era raid in which hundreds of civilians
were killed.
Prosecutor Zsolt Falvai said he considered problematic the Budapest Court’s decision
Monday that it lacked enough evidence to convict
Sandor Kepiro, a former gendarmerie captain,
of involvement in the deaths of 36 mostly
Jews and Serbs during a 1942 raid in the Serbian
city of Novi Sad, then under Hungarian control.
“There are problems with the verdict, which I consider to be unfounded,” Falvai
said Tuesday, after Judge Bela Varga had finished
reading out his explanation, which lasted
some nine hours over two days. The three-judge
panel headed by Varga said it considered at
least two key parts of the evidence against
Kepiro inadmissible.
“My opinion is that in several instances the reasons for the judgment are inconsistent
and contradictory,” Falvai said. He has
until late Friday to file an appeal.
In
his explanation, Varga said that a January
1944 conviction of Kepiro and other Hungarian
officers who took part in the Novi Sad raids
was inadmissible, because it had been annulled.
Varga also dismissed the testimony of Janos
Nagy, a Hungarian army lieutenant who was
convicted in 1948 for his actions in Novi
Sad, saying the testimony that was taken
from 1940s court documents was likely given
under duress.
Varga
further questioned Nagy’s credibility, saying
it was clear from the available documents
that the lieutenant had lied on several
occasions in attempts to lessen his responsibility.
At
the same time, Varga highlighted in the
ruling Kepiro’s successful efforts to save
the lives of the Tanurdzic family, who owned
the Novi Sad hotel where he was staying
and probably would have been shot by Hungarian
soldiers if not for Kepiro’s intervention.
Serbian
authorities and Israel’s Simon Wiesenthal
Center, which alerted Hungarian authorities
to the case, also protested the ruling.
Efraim Zuroff, head of the Wiesenthal Center’s
Jerusalem office, said Kepiro would remain
on his organization’s list of most wanted
Nazi criminals.
Jewish
groups in Novi Sad called the acquittal
“shameful” and pledged to do everything
in their power to reverse it.
Boris
Kopilovic, the deputy head of the Novi Sad
Jewish community, said a global campaign
would be launched by Jewish groups to inform
the public about the “shocking and shameful”
verdict, while a local association for honoring
Holocaust victims said it was planning to
hold a protest gathering in Novi Sad on
Sunday.
“We
may have lost a battle, but we have not
lost the war,” Ana Frenkel, a Wiesenthal
Center representative in Serbia, said at
a news conference in Novi Sad. “Justice
will be served in the end, we will not forget
the victims.”
Kepiro
has been hospitalized for more than a week
and was brought to the courtroom on Monday
by ambulance. He was present only for the
first few minutes of the session — until
Varga announced his acquittal — and was
then taken back to hospital by paramedics.
He was not in court on Tuesday.
Kepiro,
who earned a law degree in Hungary in 1937,
went to Austria after World War II and later
emigrated to Argentina, where he worked
in the textile industry. He returned to
Hungary in 1996.
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