Sandor képiró, who died last Saturday, had recently been acquitted by the Buda
District Court of complicity in a 1942 massacre of 1,250
civilians, including Jews, Serbs and Roma, in the Serbian
city of Novi Sad.
Before the Budapest trial, Képiró had twice been found guilty of involvement
in the massacre; once by the pre-Nazi Hungarian
courts, and again after the war, in 1946,
in absentia. By then, he had fled via Austria
to Argentina.
He returned
to Budapest in 1996, where the Wiesenthal
Centre's Israel director Efraim Zuroff, who
had been searching for Nazi war criminals
under the Wiesenthal Centre's 'Operation Last
Chance' programme, located him. Képiró's name
had been at the top of a list of most-wanted
suspects.
Mr Zuroff
said: "Kepiro's death while the appeal of his acquittal was pending underscores the
need to expedite such cases. I feel a deep
sense of frustration, but I will continue
my efforts since there are additonal cases
which can still be brought to justice."
thejc.com
|