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Canada: Proceedings Against Suspected War Criminals Begin




Ottawa, 4 November 1996 (RFE/RL) -- Canada has named two more suspected war criminals and will move to strip them of their Canadian citizenship.

The government alleges that Vladimir Katriuk and Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. The men are the seventh and eighth suspected war criminals against whom Canada has started deportation proceedings.

It says Katriuk belonged to the Schuma 118 Police Battalion in Belarus and participated in atrocities against Ukrainian civilians between 1942 and 1944.

It alleges that Csizsik-Csatary was a member of the Royal Hungarian Police and took part in the internment and deportation of Jews in 1944 in what is now the Slovak Republic.

Canadian Justice Minister Allan Rock says proceedings against four other men will be started before March.

In the late 1980's, Canada changed criminal laws to allow for the prosecution of alleged war criminals, but only one person was ever deported and another was extradited. No convictions have been obtained.

As a result, the federal government decided last year to pursue suspected war criminals through immigration law: charging them with having lied about their pasts in order to obtain Canadian citizenship or landed immigrant status. By moving in this manner, the government can strip the suspects of citizenship and deport them to face charges in their homelands.

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