From The Australian, by Christopher Dore, October 03, 2005 ...
AUSTRALIA has been slammed for failing to track down and prosecute 'at least several hundred' Nazi war criminals believed to have found refuge here.
(listen to ABC radio at 10am WST for an interview with Colin Rubenstein on this subject - Sandgroper)
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which is dedicated to finding suspected World War II criminals and helping prosecute them, says Australia has failed to do enough and needs to take 'additional steps, urgently'.
'Australia remains the only major Western country of refuge which admitted at least several hundred Nazi war criminals and collaborators, which has hereto failed to take successful legal action against a single one,' the centre's director, Efraim Zuroff, says in his annual report analysing the efforts of governments worldwide.
"Numerous attempts have been made ... to convince the Australian authorities to adopt civil remedies -- denaturalisation and/or deportation -- to deal with Holocaust perpetrators in the country, but the Government has refused to do so." Australia's position is in contrast to the US, which Dr Zuroff praises for launching dozens of investigations and managing to secure three prosecutions in the past 12 months.
..."It is ...extremely unlikely that they will be able to obtain any convictions while they continue to insist on prosecuting these suspects on criminal charges," he says. "This is particularly true in Australia, where all witnesses in such cases must appear in person, a factor which would make a successful prosecution next to impossible, given the country's geographical distance from the scene of the crimes committed."
Aside from Mr Zentai, the Wiesenthal Centre earlier this year also tracked down another Australian pensioner suspected of connections to the Nazis: Hungarian-born Melbourne man Lajos Polgar.
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