War crimes trials advocates here are encouraged by the Canadian justice minister’s intention to appeal the acquittal of accused war criminal Imre Finta.
Justice Minister Kim Campbell announced last week in Ottawa that the Crown will ask Canada’s Supreme Court to reverse the Ontario Court of Appeals’ decision upholding his acquittal.
The 79-year-old, Hungarian-born former restaurant owner from Hamilton, Ontario, was found not guilty of war crimes charges by a Supreme Court of Ontario jury here in May 1990.
Finta’s trial was the first conducted under a 1987 amendment to the Criminal Code that made it possible for Canadian courts to try alleged war criminals for offenses committed abroad.
The trial lasted six months. Finta, a captain in the pro-Nazi Hungarian gendarmerie during World War II, was accused of the forcible confinement of 8,617 Jews in the southern Hungarian city of Szeged from May 1 to June 30, 1944.
He was further charged with robbing the detainees of their money and valuables under threats of violence. All were deported to Auschwitz and other camps, where most perished.
A Justice Department bid for a retrial was dismissed April 29 by a 3-2 decision of a five-justice Ontario Court of Appeal panel.
Jewish leaders were pleased by the justice minister’s decision to pursue the case further.
“We have felt all along that Finta’s acquittal should be set aside and the matter be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. We feel that a new trial is a viable and indeed necessary route,” said Milton Harris, chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress’ war crimes committee.
In a related development, Sol Littman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Canadian office has written to Justice Minister Campbell, who is also attorney general, asking her to explain her comments before the House of Commons Justice Committee, in which she called for the completion of war crimes investigations by March 1994.
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