Canada To Hand Over Convicted Nazi War Criminal

Seifert would be held in military prison near Naples to begin serving his sentence, said Bartolomeo Costantini, the military prosecutor who pursued the case. He was to arrive in Rome on a special military flight from Toronto. Seifert 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. At his trial in Italy, people testified 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. Seifert has acknowledged being a guard at the SS-run Bolzano camp in 1944 and 1945, but denies being involved in the atrocities. A British Columbia judge ordered him extradited in 2003 and the B.C. Court of Appeal confirmed that ruling in 2007. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal of the extradition. Seifert is a former millworker who has lived in Canada for more than five decades. He unsuccessfully fought efforts by Ottawa to strip him of his citizenship based on allegations that he hid his past when he entered Canada. Canada bars former members of the SS and related units because of their involvement in concentration camps and with other war crimes. The Canadian Jewish Congress welcomed news that Seifert's long fight to stay in Canada appears to be over. ... http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/02/15/4849279-ap.html

Note: http://cnews.canoe.ca/C...