Accused Nazi war criminal free to stay in Australia
SYDNEY—A 90-year-old man accused of being a Nazi war criminal on Wednesday won his fight to stay in Australia, after the high court blocked his extradition to Hungary.
Charles Zentai was allegedly one of three Nazi-backed Hungarian soldiers who tortured and murdered a Jewish teenager in Budapest in 1944, a crime for which he has always maintained his innocence.
“The effect of the high court’s decision is that Mr. Zentai will not be surrendered to Hun- gary,” a spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said, confirming that the deci- sion was final.
“Mr. Zentai cannot be surrendered for extradition because the offense of ‘war crime’ did not exist under Hungarian law at the time of Mr Zentai’s alleged criminal conduct.”
Hungary first requested the extradition of Zentai, an Australian citizen, in 2005 for the offence of “war crime,” namely a fatal assault on young Jewish man Peter Balazs in November 1944 for not wearing a yellow Star of David.
He and two fellow soldiers in the transport unit of the Hun- garian Army, which was then allied to the Germans, were accused of beating Balazs and then tossing his body into the Danube River.
Zentai has always claimed he had already left Nazi-occupied Budapest by then and could not have been involved in the murder.
The Australian government agreed to send him to Hungary to face the allegations in late 2009, but he fought a legal battle against the move and the federal court eventually overturned his extradition.