A top suspected Nazi war criminal has died in a hospital in Canada, just weeks after Russia demanded his extradition.
Vladimir Katriuk was No. 2 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most wanted Nazi war criminals, and passed away aged 93. Two weeks ago the Russian government demanded Canada extradite Mr Katriuk, of Ukrainian ancestry, so he can face trial for alleged war crimes. Canada had refused.
Canada’s Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs had also called on the Canadian government to “take the necessary steps to ensure that, if guilty, Katriuk be held accountable for war crimes committed in collaboration with the Nazi regime.”
A 1999 Federal Court of Canada ruling determined that though Mr Katriuk had concealed his earlier involvement with the Nazi regime, there was no evidence to suggest he was involved in any atrocities.
However, the New York Times reported Swedish scholar Professor Per Anders Rudling as stating Mr Katriuk served in “a Ukrainian punitive battalion in German uniform, taking orders from the SS,” where he was “involved in one of the most brutal acts of violence carried out against the civilian population in occupied Belarus during World War II.”
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