Hungarian prosecutors are investigating a man suspected of war crimes committed during World War II, officials said Wednesday.The Simon Wiesenthal Center, last year identified Sandor Kepiro, 93, as having been convicted in the 1940s but never punished for his role in the killing of more than 1,200 people by Hungarian forces in Novi Sad, Serbia, during the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II.
Efraim Zuroff, director of the center’s Israel office, provided authorities with documents from the 1944 verdict and asked that Kepiro’s 10-year prison sentence for that crime be enforced.
Last month, however, the Budapest Municipal Court said the 1944 ruling could not be enforced because a retrial shortly afterward annulled the sentence.
Kepiro, then a gendarmerie captain, has denied the accusations, saying he was a scapegoat in a show trial.
The Budapest Prosecutor’s Office is now investigating Kepiro’s case, spokesman Attila Morvai said Wednesday.
The investigation for violent crimes against the civilian population was expected to take several months and it was not clear whether Kepiro would be interrogated.
For now, the investigation into Kepiro’s case was targeting an unknown suspect, Morvai added.
“According to Hungarian law, concrete proceedings are launched against an individual only after reasonable suspicion has been established,” Morvai said.
Kepiro, who moved back to Hungary in 1996 after living for decades in Argentina, was identified by the Wiesenthal Center’s “Operation: Last Chance,” which aims to capture hundreds of alleged Nazi war crimes suspects who are still alive.
(Source: Serbianna)
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2 Responses
Operation Last Chance of the wiesenthal centre is fantastic to expose nazis and publicize their crimes, but i think to hunt and jail men in their 90s could be viewed as cruel and unnecessary.
It could be viewed as such. But should we care? What did the Nazis do to men and women in their 90s? Shouldn’t that “be viewed as cruel and unnecessary?” Shouldn’t we let them jail him and anyone else no matter how old they are if they have committed heinous crimes like he has? Or any other heinous crime?
I think that it is appropriate to jail him for his crimes. Besides, this generation could certainly use a reminder of how horrible the war was. Anybody who disagrees with this should just go visit Yad Vashem and look at the picture of a Nazi shooting a young father who is holding his three year-old daughter in his arms standing in front of an open pit full of just-murdered people. Look at the video presentation of the shuls burning. Look at all the pictures of everything. Look at all of it. Don’t skip anything. Don’t miss the Hall of Names. If you didn’t get it before you will when you see it. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases – most of which are completely full of books filled with names of people killed in the war. I think they have over 4 MILLION names so far.