February 25, 1999 - Pressemeldung - Simon Wiesenthal Center:
Lithuanian government asked for trial of
massmurderesThe Simon Wiesenthal
Center today asked the Lithuanian government to extradite or try in absentia
three Lithuanian Nazi war criminals living in Australia, Great Britain and
the United States. The Center’s Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff today
handed the files of the three suspects to Mindaugas Kacerauskas of the
Lithuanian embassy in Tel-Aviv and urged the Lithuanian government to take
immediate action in the cases of:
Antanas Gudelis - currently
residing in Adelaide, Australia
Antanas Gecas (Gecevicius) - currently residing in
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Kazys Ciurinskas - currently residing in Crown Point, Indiana, USA
All three served in Lithuanian police battalions which actively
participated in the persecution and murder of thousands of Lithuanian
Jews. Both Gudelis and Gecas served as officers.
Dr. Zuroff was accompanied by MK (Member of Kneseth) Prof. Alex
Lubotzky, whose father is a survivor of the Vilnius (Lithuania) Ghetto
and Adv. Yosef Melamed, chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jews,
the worldwide umbrella organization representing Jews of Lithuanian
origin.
"Given Lithuania’s continued failure to prosecute any of the
many Nazi collaborators who are currently living in that country, we are
seeking to utilize the possibility which exists under Lithuanian law to
bring those suspected of genocide to trial in absentia regardless of
their state of health," said Dr. Zuroff, who has spearheaded the
Wiesenthal Center’s efforts to bring Lithuanian Nazi war criminals to
justice.
Abb.: Amud haEsch (Yigal Lossin)
The Nazis found an enthusiastic audience in
Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukraine |
Background
Over 96% of the 220,000 Jews who lived in Lithuania during
the Nazi occupation were murdered during the Holocaust, in many
cases by Lithuanian collaborators. Not a single Lithuanian Nazi war
criminal has ever been tried in independent Lithuania. This month
the proceedings against the only two criminals ever indicted -
Aleksandras Lileikis and Kazys Gimzauskas - were suspended for
medical reasons after numerous and unwarranted delays in both cases.
MASSENMORD
Gesucht werden:
Antanas Gudelis
Antanas Gecas
|
haGalil onLine -
Freitag 26-02-99 |
