Beate Klarsfeld, the avowed Nazi hunter, was granted provisional liberty from a Cologne prison this afternoon after solemnly promising German authorities she would return to stand trial there next month, Mrs. Klarsfeld is accused by German authorities of having tried to kidnap three years ago Kurt Lischka, a former gestapo head in Paris, in order to bring him to justice in France. Lischka was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a French court in 1950.
Mrs. Klarsfeld’s lawyer, Arie Marinski, assured German authorities that his client would be present for her trial scheduled to open in Cologne on June 26. Benjamin Halevi, a former Israeli Supreme Court Justice and currently a Knesset member, also vouched for Mrs. Klarsfeld’s sincerity by giving his personal assurances to the authorities that she would return to face German justice.
Marinski said it was unprecedented for German legal authorities to release someone from jail on assurances from a foreigner. Mrs. Klarsfeld was arrested on April 17, the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, while attending a demonstration at the site of the former Dachau concentration camp to protest against the Bonn Parliament’s delay in ratifying an extradition accord signed three years ago with France.
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