Judge Steps Down from Trial of Accused Nazi War Criminals

A federal judge has removed himself from the case of three Canadian citizens accused of Nazi war crimes after federal lawyers complained that he was “unable or unwilling” to deal with the case quickly.

Associate Chief Justice James Jerome filed a memo with the court last week advising that another judge deal with the joint denaturalization proceedings of Johann Dueck, Helmut Oberlander and Erichs Tobiass, all of whom live in the Ontario province.

A new judge, whose name has yet to be announced, is scheduled to hear the application to delay the proceedings when hearings resume this week.

Jerome resigned 11 days after Ted Thompson, the assistant deputy minister of justice, took the unprecedented step of complaining directly of Chief Justice Julius Isaac about Jerome’s foot-dragging.

While the legal maneuvers pleased Jewish groups, it outraged Ottawa lawyer Donald Bayne, who represents Dueck.

Earlier this month, Bayne asked that the case be delayed because of Thompson’s interference and Isaac’s response to him, calling it “a serious affront to the Canadian system of justice” and “scandalous.”

Dueck, 76, a retired mechanic living in Saint Catherines, is accused of taking part in the killing of Jews and other civilians as a member of the Selidovka district police in German-occupied Ukraine from 1941 to 1943.

Helmut Oberlander, 72, of Waterloo, is accused of having been a member of a commando unit that massacred hundreds of thousands of Jews in Ukraine and Crimea after the German army’s advance into the southern Soviet Union in the summer and fall of 1941.

Erichs Tobiass, 84, of Toronto, is accused of participating in the execution of civilians in Latvia from 1941 to 1943 as a member of the Latvian security police, an SS auxiliary unit responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Latvian Jews.