Hungarian Nazi Evades Australia Extradiction
An Australian federal court has ruled not to extradite suspected war criminal Charles Zentai to his native Hungary.
Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff told JTA that the ruling not to extradite the alleged war criminal to Hungary is “a permanent stain on Australia’s record.”
An Australian government spokesperson said on Wednesday that Zentai, who is accused of murdering a Jew in Budapest in 1944, could not be extradited because back then “the offense of ‘war crime’ did not exist under Hungarian law,” The Australian reported.
Hungary first requested Zentai’s extradition in 2005 for the offense of war crimes. He is accused of fatally assaulting Peter Balazs, 18, in November 1944, for not wearing a yellow Star of David.
He and two fellow soldiers in the Hungarian army were accused of beating Balazs and then tossing his body into the Danube River. Zentai denies the charges.
Zuroff, the New York-born Nazi hunter who tracked Zentai down, said the ruling “means that the Australian effort to bring Holocaust-era war criminals to justice has not had a single success.”
Zuroff said the Australian justices had “ignored numerous international precedents” in which war criminals were extradited to stand trial for genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity despite the fact that these criminal categories had not existed at the time of the crime.
The Australian court system has reviewed charges against three suspected Holocaust-era war criminals, none of whom were convicted.
The ruling shows that “Australia was the right destination for the numerous Nazi war criminals and collaborators, none of whom was ever successfully prosecuted or extradited, despite their heinous crimes,” said Zuroff, who heads the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office. “In that respect, Australia has the worst record among the major Anglo-Saxon democracies, all of whom allowed the entry of numerous Nazi helpers after World War II.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
