A verdict will be rendered Tuesday in the case of Mrs. Beate Klarsfeld, the Nazi-hunter accused in the 1971 attempt to kidnap Kurt Lischka, the World War II SS chief in Paris who is wanted in France on war crimes charges. The trial, before a Colonge judge, ended yesterday after two stormy weeks during which Judge Viktor de Somoskoeoy was forced to clear the courtroom several times and engaged in angry altercations with the defendant.
Mrs. Klarsfeld’s attorney. Arie Marinsky, asked for her acquittal. The public prosecutor demanded a six month suspended sentence which came as a surprise considering that, if found guilty, Mrs. Klarsfeld would face a maximum of five years imprisonment. The prosecutor explained that the penalty he asked for would have the effect of not minimizing the crime and at the same time would satisfy Mrs. Klarsfeld’s many supporters because it would be suspended.
The main issue at the trial was not the attempt to kidnap Lischka, which Mrs. Klarsfeld readily admitted, but the failure so far of the West German parliament to ratify the 1971 Franco-German extradition treaty under which former Nazis like Lischka could be brought to trial in France. The matter is expected to be raised by President Valery Giscard D’Estaing of France when he meets next week with the West German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, a government spokesman said Friday.
Mrs. Klarsfeld, who courted arrest when she appeared in Dachau last April to attend a memorial for Nazi victims, gained world-wide support in her trial, especially from survivors of the Nazi occupation in Europe. Tumult broke out in the courtroom on several occasions and last Wednesday police battled French demonstrators clad in concentration camp garb outside the court. The judge cleared the court of all spectators and the press with the exception of a few selected news agencies.
Last Friday, Mrs. Klarsfeld denounced the judge. “It would have been better if you had conducted the trial with greater tact and humanity and less arrogance, and with consideration for the people who spent long years in concentration camps,” she said. Somoskoeoy said. “The court emphatically rejects this kind of tactless and impertinent insult.”
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