Suspected Nazi Sues Australia for Deport Try
Alleged Nazi war criminal Karoly “Charles” Zentai has paved the way for a damages suit against the Australian government for wrongful imprisonment during its unsuccessful extradition case against him.
Zentai, a 91-year-old pensioner living in Perth, was imprisoned in Western Australia for almost two months in 2009.
He filed a writ last week for unspecified damages inflicted while he was in prison against the Federal Minister for Home Affairs, the Federal Attorney-General and the chief executive of the WA Department of Corrective Services.
Ernie Steiner, Zentai’s son, said that to keep the option of a lawsuit open, the writ had to be filed in the Supreme Court within three years of his father’s imprisonment.
Zentai was accused of committing a “war crime” when he allegedly killed an 18-year-old Jew in Hungary in 1944. He has vehemently denied the charges from the moment he was first arrested by the Australian Federal Police in 2005 after they were tipped off by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Zentai finally won the long-running legal case earlier this year when the High Court of Australia dismissed an appeal by the federal government. The judges in Canberra upheld an earlier ruling by the Federal Court, saying he could not be surrendered for an offense that did not exist under Hungarian law in 1944.
“My father was vilified, wrongfully arrested and imprisoned, was prevented from visiting his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and suffered enormous financial loss for nothing,” Steiner said.
But the Wiesenthal Center’s Dr. Efraim Zuroff said the fact Zentai was not extradited did not prove his innocence. “That issue has never been determined in a court of law,” he said.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.