A 77-year-old retired butcher from Montreal faces deportation as a suspected Nazi collaborator after a federal judge ruled that he had obtained Canadian citizenship under false pretenses.
Following the ruling, it is up to the Canadian Cabinet to approve revoking the citizenship of Vladimir Katriuk, a former member of a Ukrainian battalion that collaborated with a Nazi SS unit responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews and others in Belarus and Ukraine between 1942 and 1944.
Katriuk, who now raises bees in Quebec, denies any involvement in atrocities, claiming that he entered Canada under an alias because he was a deserter from the French Foreign Legion.
The Canadian Jewish Congress, along with the Justice Department’s war crimes unit, applauded the ruling, which, barring an unforeseen setback, will lead to Katriuk’s deportation.
Irving Abella, chair of the CJC’s war crimes unit, hailed the decision as a “giant step forward” in the government’s continuing campaign against suspected Nazi collaborators and war criminals living in Canada.
In the last three and a half years, the government has initiated proceedings against 15 Nazi war crimes suspects, including Katriuk.
Three suspects have died, two left the country voluntarily, one is about to be deported and two more have been permitted to stay.
Two other cases are now before the courts, and three others are due to get under way soon.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
