Will Képíró’s trial prove to be the last time a Nazi-era suspect is in court?

The death of 97-year-old former police captain Sándor Képíró on Saturday marked the close of what could prove to be the last trial of an alleged Nazi-era war criminal. Képíró had been acquitted for lack of evidence on 18 July by Budapest Municipal Court. However, at the time of his death, the verdict was subject to an appeal by both his defence counsel and the prosecution.

Third time on trial

During what was Képíró’s third and last trial, doubt had been cast on the reliability of documents dating back almost seven decades, and testimony by long-dead witnesses from earlier trials was ruled inadmissible.
Képíró stood accused of complicity in the deaths of 36 civilians while captaining an armed police unit in what is now northern Serbia in 1942.
Between 21 and 23 January that year over 1200, mostly Serbs and Jews, were killed – shot into the Danube – as part of a series of reprisals that became known as the Novi Sad massacre. The Hungarian court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove Képíró’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. After prosecutors appealed, his defence lawyer did the same in a bid to have Képíró fully exonerated.

Twice convicted

The case was unusual in that Képíró had already been found guilty in two earlier trials. The first was in February 1944, when he was one of several convicted by a Hungarian court for involvement in the slaughter. However, Hungary was overrun by Nazi Germany in March that year, a home-grown fascist party took power, and Képíró was released. Two years later he was found guilty in absentia by a People’s Court in a post-war Hungary that was then under the sway of the USSR. By that point, Képíró had already emigrated to Argentina.
He returned home in 1996 and settled in Budapest, where he lived out his retirement in obscurity until 2006, when he was “outed” by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Nazi-hunting bureau’s chief investigator, Efraim Zuroff, had acquired documents relating to the earlier trials. In the five years since then, Képíró lived out the remainder of his retirement in the public eye, topping the wanted list in the organisation’s “Operation Last Chance”.

Time stops for no man

The Wiesenthal Center expressed “deep frustration” over his death. “Képiro’s acquittal last month was not only a terrible travesty of justice which insulted the memory of the victims of the mass murder carried out by the Hungarian forces, (but also) encouraged those who seek to deny Hungarian participation in Holocaust crimes,” Zuroff said.
The pool of nonagenarians who may have participated in the crimes of the Holocaust is dwindling. Képíró’s trial came shortly after another high-profile case – that of the Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 91 – ended with his being sentenced to five years by a German court then released pending appeal. It is thought that it could take up to two-years for the case to come to court, by which time Demjanjuk may well be dead.
Képíró topped a list the Wiesenthal Center issued in May of ten “most wanted” war crimes suspects known to be alive. Another Hungarian on the list, the ailing Charles Zentai, has so far successfully battled against extradition from Australia to Hungary.
Most of the names are low-ranking soldiers, police officers and other volunteers. However, the reports also named Alois Brunner, described as a key operative of Adolf Eichmann, the infamous chief bureaucrat of the Holocaust. Brunner was allegedly responsible for organising the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews from Austria, Greece, France and Slovakia, and is thought to have lived for decades in Syria. The trouble is, it is not known whether he is alive or dead.

budapesttimes.hu