A Lithuanian court this week found former Cleveland real estate agent Algimantas Dailide guilty of helping to murder Jews.

But the Vilnius district court declined to send Dailide, 85, to prison because of his advanced age and ill health.

The judge's decision not to punish Dailide is “absolutely outrageous,” says Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. “This so delegitimizes the effort to punish Nazi war criminals. It's unequivocal proof that Lithuania is incapable of facing its Nazi past.”

As a member of the Saugumas, the Nazi-backed Lithuanian security police, Dailide assisted in rounding up Jews who were later murdered, the court ruled. Dailide has always maintained that he was only a clerk and didn't help to kill anyone.

Nearly 90% of Lithuania's Jewish population of 220,000 were killed in World War II.

Dailide was stripped of his American citizenship in 1997, and an appellate court affirmed the decision. In 2003, just before the government deported him, he left the US for Germany, his wife's native country. He voluntarily returned to Lithuania for the war crimes trial, which makes Zuroff suspicious that Dailide knew ahead of time that he would not go to prison.

Zuroff told the CJN he's going to do everything possible “to get this guy.” He's asking the Poles to prosecute Dailide, since Vilnius was part of Poland before World War II. He's also requesting that Germany expel Dailide.

“Dealing with Lithuania and knowing the role played by Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes is one of the most frustrating aspects of my 25 years of hunting Nazi war criminals.”

Cleveland Jewish News, 31.03.06