http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/16/content_7613277.htm
2008-02-16 09:16:54
Canada extradites former Nazi prison guard to Italy
OTTAWA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Canada on Friday extradited to Italy Michael
Seifert, a man convicted of committing brutal crimes at an Italian prison camp
during the Second World War.
Seifert, 83, has spent years fighting his case at every level of the
Canadian justice system. He lost the fight earlier this year when the Supreme
Court of Canada refused to hear his appeal of an extradition order by a lower
court.
Dubbed as the Beast of Bolzano, Seifert was an ethnic German born in
Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. He moved to Canada in 1951 and worked
as a mill worker in the province of British Columbia.
He was convicted in absentia in 2000 by a military tribunal on nine counts
of murder committed while he was an SS guard at a prison transit camp in
Bolzano, northern Italy. He starved a 15-year-old prisoner to death, gouged out
a person's eyes, beat prisoners before shooting them and tortured a woman
before killing her and her daughter, according to witnesses.
Seifert has acknowledged serving as a guard at the camp in 1944and 1945,
but denies any involvement in the atrocities.
Seifert was taken on a special military flight in Toronto Friday and he is
expected to arrive in Italy on Saturday, his lawyer told the press.
He would be taken to a military prison near Naples to begin serving his
sentence. But he could eventually be allowed to serve his sentence on house
arrest, an Italian prosecutor said.
The Canadian Jewish Congress has said that as many as 1,500 "Nazi enablers"
came to Canada after the war and Seifert is one of only a few who have faced
justice.
Seifert is only the second person convicted of crimes during the Second
World War ever to be extradited from Canada, according to the congress.
In May 1983, Albert Rauca was extradited to West Germany from Canada to
stand trial for the murder of more than 11,500 Lithuanian Jews. He died in
prison a few months later at age 75.
Editor: Du Guodong
