A Dutch court this week dismissed an appeal by Nazi collaborator Jacob Luitjens, who was extradited from Canada last month, ruling he must serve out a 1948 sentence of life imprisonment.
Luitjens, 73, a retired botany instructor, was jailed in November on his return from Canada after waging a four-year battle against deportation. Canadian courts found he had lied about his wartime past on entering the country in 1961.
Luitjens may appeal the Dutch lower court ruling. His brother has already submitted a request for mercy to the Dutch crown.
Luitjens had sought a retrial in the Netherlands on the grounds he was not present at the original hearing where he was convicted in absentia for helping the occupying German forces capture Dutch resistance fighters during World War II.
But the same court in the northern town of Assen ruled that his request for a new trial had come too late. The court found he had known of his conviction in 1983 but had failed to apply for a new trial within a stipulated 14-day limit.
Luitjens was arrested in 1945 for wartime activities as a member of a Dutch Nazi police unit that hunted down resistance fighters and Jews. He escaped from a detention camp in 1947 and fled to Paraguay, before moving to Canada 14 years later.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
