Hopes for a successful war crimes prosecution in Canada received another setback Wednesday when the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed a bid by the Justice Department for a retrial of Imre Finta.
The 79-year-old Toronto man was acquitted by a Supreme Court of Ontario jury here in May 1990 after a six-month trial, the first in Canada under a 1987 amendment to the Criminal Code permitting trials for World War II war crimes.
The five-judge panel was split in its 221 page judgment, with two of the Court of Appeal justices dissenting. One of the salient questions was the alleged impropriety of the closing address by Finta’s chief defense counsel, Douglas Christie.
All five of the judges found that Christie’s summation to the jury was inflammatory. Two would have ordered a new trial on that basis, while the remaining three found that the instructions to the jury by Judge Archie Campbell of the Supreme Court of Ontario were sufficient to offset Christie’s address.
Christie attacked as “diabolical” the legislation allowing for the prosecution of war crimes committed outside Canadian jurisdiction against non-Canadians. He threatened that vengeance would be visited upon the members of the jury if they were to convict his client.
In an address tinged with anti-Semitic overtones, Christie read passages from the New Testament describing Jesus’ refusal to answer false accusations put to him by Jews.
SUPREME COURT APPEAL URGED
Jewish leaders were clearly disappointed by the ruling. “In our view, the case cannot be abandoned at this point, and should be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada,” said Manuel Prutschi, national director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress.
“Today being the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, we think that it’s a very appropriate time for the authorities to rededicate themselves to the task of bringing suspected Nazi war criminals to justice.
“In our view, we think that the political will has been there, but the bureaucratic will has been flagging. We certainly hope that will change in a dramatic way. There can be no moratorium on these kinds of heinous crimes,” he said.
“The decision today reflects the overall unsatisfactory record of Canada in dealing with accused Nazi war criminals and collaborators who found safe haven in Canada following World War II,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement.
Looking for a bright note, Prutschi observed, “It’s important to note that the court upheld the constitutionality of the law.”
The Crown has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada within 30 days on every question where there was a dissent in the Court of Appeal. The Crown may also seek leave from the Supreme Court of Canada within 60 days on questions where there was no dissent.
Finta, a captain in the pro-Nazi Hungarian gendarmerie during the World War II, was accused of the forcible confinement of 8,617 Jews in the southern Hungarian city of Szeged from May 16 to June 30, 1944, and of robbing the detainees of their valuables while threatening violence.
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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.
