MONTREAL — An Israel-based Nazi hunter can’t believe the Canadian government let another one get away with it.

Laszlo Csatary, who died of pneumonia Aug. 12 at 98, sent more than 15,000 Jews to Auschwitz, beat and tortured internment workers in Kosice and was condemned to death for war crimes by a Czech tribunal in 1948 — before opening up an art dealership in Montreal, where he lived quietly for nearly 50 years, until his past was revealed.

Csatary left Canada after he got word authorities were closing in and relocated to Hungary in 1997.

His death before trial is indicative of long-standing legislative loopholes in the Canadian justice system that allow war criminals and individuals responsible for crimes against humanity to escape prosecution, argues Efraim Zuroff, a member of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center and author of Operation Last Chance: One man’s quest to bring Nazi criminals to justice.

Zuroff says the Csatary case highlights problems with Canadian law.

“I call it the Al Capone compromise,” Zuroff said over the phone, above the sound of fiddling as he stepped out of an Orthodox wedding. “They prosecute these guys not for (war) crimes, but for immigration violations. (…) So they have de-naturalized 10 Nazi collaborators, two of whom fled, but then eight of them decided to stick it out and fight it.

“Here’s the bad news,” he added: “Not a single one of them has been deported.”

Nazi collaborators are dying off before their day in court, and time is running out to bring them to justice, Zuroff said.

On both occasions, in Montreal and in Hungary, it was Zuroff who discovered Csatary’s whereabouts and alerted officials. Each time, he said, they were slow to act.

“For me, it’s a terrible disappointment and source of frustration (Csatary died before trial),” lamented Zuroff, who describes his occupation as part detective, part historian and part political lobbyist. “He’s not a minor criminal: this guy was a sadist. He tortured and terrorized people. (…) The passage of time in no way diminishes what he did, old age shouldn’t protect mass murderers, and the families of his victims should have seen justice served.”

What Zuroff hopes is that the remaining alleged Nazi collaborators will stand trial, rather than live out their lives with relative impunity.

He named Vladimir Katruik, 90, who keeps bees in rural Ormstown, as No. 4 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of the top 10 most-wanted Nazis. Katruik is alleged to have herded 149 people, including 75 children, into a barn that was torched in 1943, gunning down anyone attempting to escape.

Rounding out the top 10 is 88-year-old Helmut Oberlander, a retired construction firm CEO who moved to Waterloo, Ont. in 1954. Oberlander was a teen when he allegedly worked for a Nazi mobile death squad that was found to have exterminated 23,000 Jewish, Sinti and Roma people during the Second World War. He is still fighting to keep Canadian citizenship.

While Canada was the first country to incorporate the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWCA) into federal law in 2000, its application has proved to be more difficult, say human rights researchers.

“Even in an age of human rights law, it’s not a done deal when war criminals are tried or extradited (back to their country of origin),” said Frank Chalk, the co-founder and director at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

While the law allows for the prosecution of individuals present in Canada for crimes committed internationally, Chalk said there are a number of reasons why verdicts are rarely rendered here.

For one, legal precedent has set a high standard for the ability to prove that an alleged perpetrator acted out of malice and with intent. Another reason is that the availability of appropriate historical experts, and lack of historical knowledge among judges, juries and prosecutors, also leads to cases where decisions are appealed or reversed.

If a war criminal is tried and finally deported, he said, “it’s not a given that justice will really be done” in the country of origin. “The Department of Justice and Foreign Affairs should be following up, saying ‘We deported this guy and expect him to be tried.’ But this takes foresight, persistence, and political pressure.”

The process gets harder as time goes on, he added. Canada gives defendants seven chances to appeal a verdict.

Federal officials from the Justice Department were unable to comment on the Csatary case by press time.

“The government of Canada is committed to tackling crime in whatever form it may appear, and war crimes are no exception,” said spokesperson Carole Saintdon. “Those who have been involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity will continue to be prosecuted in accordance with Canadian law.

“Canada plays a leadership role on the international stage in global efforts to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable for their crimes through cooperation with other countries and international tribunals,” she added in a statement,

Under extradition law, amended in 1999, the CAHWCA obliges Canada to arrest and surrender persons sought by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kyle Matthews, the senior deputy director at MIGS Concordia, said the ICC is slowly but surely starting to put some teeth into the international legislation.

“There’s progress being made,” said Matthews, “but also enormous gaps in the system. One wonders why it took 50 years to find (Csatary) in Canada and how he was able to flee and live for another 15 years in Hungary.”

A lot of it comes down to sharing information and resources among allies and governments, he said. “The world is more interconnected than ever before, sure (…) but the amount of human resources required to really fact check and create an argument for many of these cases is just mind-boggling.”

But the importance of prosecuting war criminals in these trials, however difficult and long they take, is paramount to upholding human rights and justice, he said.

“It sends a clear and powerful message to those engaged in extremist movements that are thinking of committing atrocities,” Matthews said. “That message is: ‘You will not get away with this.’ ”

o.canada.com