The Department of Justice filed a suit in Federal Court here yesterday to revoke the citizenship of Karl Linnas on grounds that he concealed his Nazi post when he entered the United States in 1951 and became a citizen in 1960. According to the suit, Linnas, a 60-year-old native of Estonia, selected prisoners for execution when he was commander of the guard at the Tartu concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Estonia from 1941-1943.
A resident of Greenlawn, Long Island, Linnas was condemned to death in absentia by the Soviet Union in 1962 for complicity in the executions of 12,000 inmates at Tartu. The denaturalization suit brought by the government is the first step toward deportation proceedings. If successful, Linnas could be deported to the Soviet Union.
Evidence about Linnas’ wartime activities was gathered by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Justice Department’s recently formed Office of Special Investigation which has been given the task of ferreting out Nazi war-criminals living in the U.S. Cases are now pending against 250 alleged war criminals.
Earlier this week, denaturalization proceedings were begun against Wolodimir Osidach, 75, of Philadelphia and Bolidan Kozly, 56, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for alleged roles in Nazi atrocities in the Ukraine and Poland during World War II.
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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.
