NOVI SAD, July 24 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Serbs and Jews rallied on Sunday in
Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city, and in the capital
Belgrade against the acquittal of a Hungarian man suspected
of involvement in a World War Two massacre.
"We are hoping for the day when we will be able to say Sandor Kepiro is guilty.
He is guilty," Aleksandar Veljic of the Association for the Remembrance of Holocaust told the
rally in Novi Sad 80 kilometers (50 miles)
north of Belgrade.
A Hungarian
court last week cleared Kepiro (97) of involvement
in the January 1942 Novi Sad massacre of more
than 1,000 civilians, mainly Serbs and Jews,
due to lack of evidence. The verdict is subject
to appeal.
"This
verdict was a disgraceful decision, shameful
for survivors, victims and mankind," Veljic said.
Kepiro,
a Hungarian national, served as a gendarme
during the war, when parts of Serbia were
occupied by troops from Hungary, then allied
with Nazi Germany. The Novi Sad massacre was
ordered in retaliation for attacks by communist
partisans.
Kepiro
was accused of being involved in a series
of events in which people were rounded up
and sent to their deaths before a firing squad
or were pushed under the ice of the Danube
river.
Kepiro
was also charged with being a member of a
squad that murdered people in their homes.
"No
one knew what they were preparing, they just
rounded up peaceful people from their homes
and killed them all," said Ljubisa Lekic (87) who lost her father and two uncles in the atrocities.
Kepiro
lived in Argentina from 1948 to 1996. He was
spotted in 2006 in Budapest by the Nazi-hunting
Simon Wiesenthal Center, which informed Hungarian
authorities.
As many
as 1.7 million people died in former Yugoslavia
during World War Two, mainly Serbs, Jews and
Roma, but also other nationalities, many in
death camps.
Serbian
authorities, including the country's top war
crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, who
helped bring the case against Kepiro in 2008,
said they were disappointed by the verdict.
Belgrade
has also sought to try Kepiro for war crimes,
but his extradition was put on hold due to
the trial in Hungary.
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