'War criminals allowed to escape prosecution'
Barney Zwartz |
NAZI and other war criminals have been allowed to live comfortable lives in
Australia thanks to "fickle and cynical" government morality, according to a Jewish community leader.
"
There has been a gross distortion of decency, allowing fugitives
to take the places of refugees," Jeremy
Jones, director of international affairs for the Australia/Israel
and Jewish Affairs Council, said at a book launch in Sydney
on Sunday.
"
Australian governments, though commission and omission, have
been complicit in allowing torturers, murderers and architects
of the most gross inhumanity to live in peace and without
fear of consequences in Australia," Mr
Jones said.
He said there was no political will to chase the hundreds,
if not thousands, of war criminals who came to Australia
after World War II, partly because the Government wanted "good
anti-communists".
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Unlike the US, Australia did not ask the right questions,
so immigrants did not have to lie, which later would be grounds
for deporting them, Mr Jones said.
Even now Australia had not prosecuted or extradited a single
person for crimes against humanity, though perpetrators had
come here from Europe, South America and Asia.
Last week the High Court upheld the decision not to extradite
Charles Zentai to Hungary to face allegations of war crimes
on the grounds that such an offence did not exist at the
time. Mr Jones said the decision seemed to show "an
awful lack of will, let alone morality".
"
Australia held itself up as a place where a person could
forget his or her past, and this was twisted and manipulated
into a rationalisation for allowing criminals to escape prosecution."
Mr Jones was launching The Road to the Menzies Inquiry: Suspected
War Crimin-als in Australia by the late Leslie Caplan, a
former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
brisbanetimes.com.au
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