Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir said today that Israel was making a maximum effort to obtain the extradition of alleged Nazi war criminal Gustav Franz Wagner from Brazil. He told the Knesset that the crimes attributed to Wagner, now a resident of Sao Paulo, included the murder of thousands of Jewish children.
West Germany and Austria have also filed extradition requests for the 67-year-old Vienna-bom Wagner who was identified by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal as the one-time deputy commander of the notorious Treblinka and Sobibor concentration camps. Legal circles here believe that the German and Austrian claims will probably be recognized before Israel’s. But Tamir promised the Knesset that he would do his utmost to have Wagner brought to justice in Israel. (The Dutch government has been asked by Wiesenthal to press for Wagner’s extradition to Holland.)
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