Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff has said that the Wiesenthal Center's Operation Last Chance produced the names of almost 200 Lithuanian suspects in the past year and that 32 of the names have been submitted to authorities for formal investigation.

However, Lithuanian war crime authorities said that the campaign provided more data for historical purposes than for criminal hearings.

In a July 21 press release, the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that it had received the names of 184 suspects accused of participation in Holocaust crimes in Lithuania or as members of the Lithuanian Security Police units outside the country.

In a statement issued by Zuroff, the center said that names of 32 suspects had already been submitted to chief prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius of the special investigations division of the Prosecutor General's office for formal investigation.

"The center is looking forward to the opening of additional official investigations against at least several of the suspects," the statement said.

Zuroff, who coordinates the project, expressed satisfaction with its advancement. "The results achieved during the first year of Operation Last Chance in Lithuania are the best proof of the significance of this project. Most of the names submitted to us were unknown, and they constitute an important addition to our knowledge of the identity of the perpetrators of the Holocaust," he said.

Valentukevicius, chief prosecutor in charge of special investigations, said he had received information from Zuroff on several occasions during the past years and added that the majority of the data was "fragmentary and without actual grounds."

"Most of Zuroff's data could be important for historiography and archives, but unfortunately it is of little use for legal assessment and prosecution," Valentukevicius said.

He added that all data were investigated in the framework of the new criminal code.

"The possibility cannot be ruled out that the facts had already been checked. Among those sentenced and repressed in the after-war period, there were hundreds charged with Jewish genocide. Zuroff's material speaks about specific facts, events and names but there is nothing to catch on," said Valentukevicius.

Among "more serious and potential" data yet to be confirmed, the prosecutor mentioned the recently initiated pretrial investigation of the massacre of two Jewish families in the Rokiskis district in August 1941. Zuroff mentioned four suspects, two already deceased, one living in Lithuania and one abroad. The State Security Department's Panevezys office is currently probing the data.

Nazis and their local perpetrators massacred about 90 percent of Lithuania's prewar Jewish population of 220,000 during World War II.

The Operation Last Chance project was launched in conjunction with the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami in July 2002 in Vilnius.

Last year Zuroff offered a bonus of $10,000 for information leading to prosecution of war criminals, with the prize to be awarded only in cases when the suspect is prosecuted and sentenced.

According to the July 21 press release, the center has not yet paid any financial rewards to informants in Lithuania but will do so as soon as there is an official murder investigation against any suspect healthy enough to stand trial.