The Australian government has confirmed that a fourth case against an alleged Nazi war criminal will not be tried because funding for crucial final investigations will not be made available.
Media reports have identified the man as a 79-year-old resident of Melbourne who was an officer and committed the alleged crimes in Latvia during World War II.
Australia’s Special Investigations Unit, appointed to prepare evidence against Australian residents accused of crimes against humanity during the Nazi occupation of Europe, was funded until June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The decision not to proceed with the case follows statements by Graham Blewitt, the unit’s former director, that there was enough evidence collected to establish a strong prima-facie case against the alleged war criminal.
But there is no consensus among other government officials on how near the investigation had come to producing the evidence required to bring the case to trial.
Although it is technically possible that further trials may occur in Australia, it is now considered unlikely that there will be any new war crimes cases introduced in Australia.
There have been no convictions in Australia’s cases against alleged Nazi war criminals, and there have been several procedural setbacks since January 1990, when Ivan Polyukhovich became the first person to face prosecution under Australia’s War Crimes Amendment Act, which was enacted in December 1988.
Polyukhovich has formally pleaded not guilty to all charges.
FUNDING CUT PROTESTED
Last month, a magistrate dropped charges against the second accused, Mikolay Berezowsky, saying there was “no case to answer.” The magistrate, David Gurry, ruled that there was a lack of eyewitness evidence after not allowing prosecutors to travel to the Ukraine to collect eyewitness evidence.
Berezowsky will possibly face charges in Australia’s Supreme Court.
The third man, Heinrich Wagner, will appear before the court later this month.
All the alleged crimes in these cases took place in the Ukraine.
Australia’s foundering war crimes procedures have raised the hackles of the former director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.
Allan Ryan, who was OSI chief from 1980 to 1983, wrote to then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke last December after hearing that funding for war crimes trials in Australia would be halted in June.
Ryan asked the prime minister to “reconsider and reverse the decision to discontinue the activities of the Special Investigations Unit.”
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