The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on the United States and European Union to investigate Lithuania’s handling of two Nazi-era war crimes trials. Calling the country’s handling of the cases a “travesty of justice,” Efraim Zuroff, the head of the center’s Jerusalem office, said foreign nations should give the cases “major consideration” when determining whether Lithuania should be admitted to NATO or the European Union. Lithuanian medical panels recently ruled that the two elderly defendants, Aleksandras Lileikis and Kazys Gimzauskas, are too ill to face charges that they turned Jews over to Nazi death squads.
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