The lawyer for an Ontario pensioner accused of war crimes argued here last week that it appeared as though his client was the victim of a KGB smear campaign.
Johann Dueck, 76, was targeted by the paranoid Stalinist regime after World War II, lawyer Don Bayne told a Canadian federal judge Dec. 12.
Bayne said being “against the Soviets” made one “a Nazi collaborator.”
In May, the Justice Department initiated denaturalization proceedings against Dueck, a retired mechanic, accusing him of taking park in the killing of Jews and other civilians as a member of the Selidovka district police in German- occupied Ukraine from 1941 to 1943.
The documents allege that Dueck had concealed this information from Canadian immigration officials, thereby obtaining citizenship by “false representation or fraud.”
But Dueck’s lawyer said he only recently learned that Canadian authorities came to suspect Dueck based on information supplied by the former Soviet Union in 1980.
Bayne asked the court to order the release of all documents relating to the Soviet information and the subsequent Canadian investigation.
If stripped of his Canadian citizenship, Dueck faces a deportation hearing.
In 1995, the Justice Department initiated proceeding against several Canadians accused of war crimes.
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.
