Deputies want probe into war criminal spy claim

THE BOARD of Deputies has called for an inquiry into allegations that a suspected Nazi war criminal may have been recruited by British intelligence.

BBC News has reported that German prosecutors had investigated Shropshire pensioner Stanislaw Chrzanowski before his death in 2017 over civilian murders in Belarus during the war.

Mr Chrzanowski’s late stepson John Kingston, who died in 2018, had reported him to the Metropolitan Police in the 1990s but the case was dropped due to insufficient evidence, according to the report.

Mr Kingston had gathered a stash of evidence against his stepfather including photos, documents and secretly recorded telephone conversations.

Now another BBC News investigation – broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday – claims to have uncovered evidence Mr Chrzanowski may have been a Cold War spy.

It draws from recordings of private conversations Mr Kingston had with his stepfather and contains allegations British intelligence destroyed files in the 1980s and 1990s likely to include information about any Nazi collaborators recruited by UK intelligence.

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl described the investigation as “shocking” and called for a public inquiry. She said: “Radio 4’s programme also alleges that 30 years ago the British Intelligence services attempted to cover up their actions, destroying information and thereby protecting Nazis who were still alive and living in Britain three decades ago. That would be monstrous – and one must assume illegal – behaviour.

“The British public deserves to know the full facts behind this.”

British Rail ticket collector Anthony Sawoniuk, who died in Norwich Prison in 2005, is the only Nazi collaborator to have been convicted of war crimes in Britain. After a trial at the Old Bailey in 1999 he was found guilty of murder of Jews in his hometown in Poland, and given two life sentences and told he would never be released.

A Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) spokesperson said “it had long been known” perpetrators settled in the UK after the war and “long suspected” some were recruited by the intelligence services.

“We are proud of the role which we and others played in bringing about the War Crimes Act of 1991, which finally offered the hope to survivors of the Holocaust that the killers could be brought to justice.

“Of a number of suspected cases, only one was successfully prosecuted under the Act. If there is any evidence to suggest that there was the deliberate frustration of the War Crimes Act or that files were destroyed, that must be investigated,” HET said.