Hungarian prosecutors have indicted a 98-year-old former police officer for abusing Jews and assisting in their deportation to Nazi death camps during the second world war.

They say Laszlo Csatary was the chief of an internment camp for 12,000 Jews at a brick factory in Kosice – a Slovak city then part of Hungary – in May 1944, and that he beat them with his bare hands and a dog whip.

He also allegedly refused to allow ventilation holes to be cut into the walls of a railway carriage crammed with 80 people being deported.

With his actions, Csatary "wilfully assisted in the unlawful execution and torture of the Jews deported from [Kosice] to concentration camps in territories occupied by the Germans," the prosecution said in a statement.

Csatary, who has denied the charges, was first detained by the Hungarian authorities in July 2012 after his case was made public by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish organisation active in bringing Nazis to justice.

Bettina Bagoly, a spokeswoman for Budapest prosecutors, said that since Csatary had been charged with war crimes the case was considered to be of special importance, and the first session of the trial would have to be held within three months.

Bagoly also said the prosecution had asked the court to tighten the conditions of Csatary's house arrest, which were loosened by a judge in April.

Csatary lived for decades in Canada, where he worked as an art dealer before leaving in 1997, just before he was due to appear at a deportation hearing. His Canadian citizenship was later revoked.

Edita Salamonova, a Holocaust survivor whose family was killed at Auschwitz after their deportation from Kosice, said she remembered Csatary well.

"I can see him in front of me," Salamonova said in Kosice last year: "a tall, handsome man but with a heart of stone."

Salamonova remembered Csatary's presence at the brick factory – which has since been torn down. She said she was sure to keep out of his sight when he was around. "One had to hide. You never knew what could have happened any time," said Salamonova, who eventually returned home after enduring several Nazi camps.

Sandor Kepiro, another Hungarian suspect tried for war crimes after the Wiesenthal Centre disclosed his whereabouts, died in September 2011, a few months after being acquitted owing to insufficient evidence. The verdict was being appealed against when he died.

Though Csatary is expected to go on trial in Hungary, he could be extradited to Slovakia, where he was convicted in his absence in 1948.

guardian.co.uk