A Canadian immigration adjudicator has ruled that an accused Nazi war criminal cannot be deported, even if he lied to immigration officers in 1950 about his wartime activities.
The ruling by the Immigration and Refugee Board last week may make it more difficult to expel Nazi war criminals living in Canada.
Adjudicator Ed MacNamara ruled that Josef Nemsila, 82, effectively obtained “domicile” status after living in Canada for five years and thus could not be deported, even for reasons that would have made him ineligible for entry into Canada in the first place.
Nemsila’s 1950 entry documents list him as a farmer. He is a citizen of the former Czechoslovakia with permanent-resident status in Canada.
Nemsila was allegedly a district commander in the notorious Hlinka Guard in the Nazi vassal state of Slovakia. He also allegedly participated in the roundup of the country’s 100,000 Jews and their deportation to Auschwitz and other death camps in Poland.
Prosecutor Christopher Amerasinghe said the Justice Department would appeal the ruling.
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