Nazi-hunters give Canada a low grade

January 13, 2011|Associated Press

JERUSALEM — A report by a Nazi-hunting group gives more than a dozen countries, including Canada, Hungary, and Ukraine, low grades for bringing suspected Holocaust-era war criminals to justice.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center gave top marks to Germany — the first time any country besides the United States has gotten an “A’’ for prosecuting suspected Nazi war criminals.

The report covers the period between April 2009 and March 2010.

Hungary received a failing grade for not imprisoning Dr. Sandor Kepiro, a Hungarian military officer convicted in 1944 in the mass murder of civilians.

Canada was cited for not extraditing former Nazis even after stripping them of citizenship.

The center gave a failing grade to Ukraine because it “never conducted a single investigation of a local Nazi war criminal.’’

In all, nine countries received failing grades, and five received “Ds.’’

A total of 456 cases were opened in the period covered by the report, compared with 315 the year before and 63 in 2006-2007.

Germany received its top mark for convicting, in 2009 and 2010, the first two Nazi war criminals since 2002.