Changes in South Australia’s Justices Act could complicate the trial of a suspected war criminal accused of murdering or complicity in the murders of over 100 Jews in Ukraine in 1942.
Heinrich Wagner, 67, is the defendant in Australia’s third war crimes trial, scheduled to begin in August. But changes in the act may invalidate the depositions of witnesses taken before June 30.
The changes are part of an overhaul of the proceedings of magistrates courts in South Australia and have no direct relationship to war crimes trials.
But unless the case goes to trial before July 1, all overseas witnesses will have to re-sign their statements on new forms.
Wagner is charged on three counts. He is accused of having been directly and knowingly concerned in or a party to the murders of 104 Jews in the Ukrainian village of Izraylovka, between May 1 and July 30, 1942. The village, now known as Berezovatkain, is in the Ustinovka district of the Kirovograd region of Ukraine.
Wagner is further charged with the murders of at least 19 children, ages 4 months to 11 years, between May 1 and July 30, 1942, in the same village.
The children had Jewish fathers and Ukrainian or Russian mothers.
Apart from the difficult task of locating overseas witnesses to sign new deposition forms, Wagner’s health could affect his trial. He is considered the least physically fit of current war crimes suspects.
Another suspect, Mikolay Berezowsky, is charged with being directly, knowingly concerned with or a party to the murder of 102 Jewish women and children and some elderly men near Gnivan, in the Vinnitsa region of Ukraine, between March 1 and July 31 1942.
His trial is scheduled to open within the next six weeks.
TESTIMONY FROM A BROTHER-IN-LAW
Meanwhile, the trial of alleged war criminal Ivan Polyukhovich took a dramatic turn in the Adelaide courtroom this week when the defendant was confronted by a prosecution witness who happened to be his brother-in-law.
The witness, Ivan Andreyevich Polyukhovich, claimed his sister Maria’s husband was a known murderer who once threatened his wife’s family with a machine gun.
Polyukhovich was a common surname in the Ukrainian villages of Serniki and Alexandrove, although its bearers were not necessarily related. To distinguish between them, the accused has been referred to in court as “Ivanechko,” the name he was known by during the war.
Andreyevich Polyukhovich said that before Maria married Ivanechko, their father forbade her to see him. He entered their home, pointed a machine gun at the family and pretended to shoot them, Andreyevich testified.
Another prosecution witness, Filip Ivanovich Polyukhovich — not related to the other Polyukhoviches — told the court that he had discovered the bodies of his father and another man allegedly shot by the accused.
Earlier, Ivan Dmitreyvich Turuk gave an eyewitness account of the murder of five men and and the narrow escape of his sister, Nadezdha, in a forest near the village of Brodnitsa.
Polyukhovich, 78, a longtime resident of Adelaide, has been charged under the War Crimes Act with 24 counts of murder and participation in another 850 murders in German-occupied Ukraine.
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