Russia rips Canada after death of alleged Nazi
Quebec resident was accused of participating in 1943 village massacre
MONTREAL — The Russian Embassy in Ottawa ripped into the federal government Thursday after news emerged that a longtime Canadian resident who was No. 2 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most wanted Nazi war criminals had died.
Vladimir Katriuk’s lawyer said his client had been ill for a long time before his recent death at the age of 93.
“I think it was last Friday,” Orest Rudzik said from Oakville, Ont. “It was a stroke or something to do with a stroke.”
Katriuk, a native of Ukraine who had been an avid beekeeper for years in Ormstown, Que., was at the heart of allegations he participated in a village massacre in 1943 in what is now known as Belarus.
An official with the Russian Embassy said Katriuk’s death makes it impossible, “unfortunately,” for him to face justice.
“Sadly, the Canadian government ignored numerous appeals by Canadian Jewish organizations and efforts by the Russian authorities to ensure that justice be served, allowing Vladimir Katriuk to retain citizenship of Canada while peacefully residing in this country,” press secretary Kirill Kalinin said in an email sent to The Canadian Press.
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has led to Canada all but severing relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as imposing a slew of sanctions against individuals and entities in both countries.
The Federal Court ruled in 1999 that Katriuk lied about his voluntary service for German authorities during the war in order to obtain Canadian citizenship.
The court concluded Katriuk had been a member of a Ukrainian battalion implicated in numerous atrocities in Ukraine — including the deaths of thousands of Jews in Byelorussia between 1941 and 1944.
But in 2007, the Canadian government overturned an earlier decision to revoke Katriuk’s citizenship, due to a lack of evidence.
A study three years ago alleged Katriuk was a key participant in a massacre in Khatyn during the Second World War.
The article said a man with Katriuk’s name lay in wait in March 1943 outside a barn that had been set ablaze, operating a machine-gun and firing on civilians as they tried to flee the burning building.
News of Katriuk’s death emerged just several hours after the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Ottawa should take the necessary steps to ensure he be held accountable if he were found guilty of war crimes committed in collaboration with the Nazis.