Serbia issues arrest warrant for suspected Nazi

SNIPPET: "Egner allegedly had served in a Nazi unit that killed about 17,000 civilians in 1941 and 1942. Serbian prosecutors say the unit used a specially designed van in which they gassed the victims with carbon monoxide.

blog:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/03/whatever_it_is_that_accused.php

By Rick Anderson, Monday, Mar. 22 2010 @ 10:45AM
Categories: United States of America

“Enger is accused of committing war crimes.”

SNIPPET: “Whatever it is that accused Nazi war criminal Peter Egner of Bellevue may have done, he doesn’t want the details revealed to the press or the public.”

SNIPPET: “U.S. Justice Dept. prosecutors have already met with Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic to discuss cooperation in the case. In a statement, Vukcevic’s office says they plan to request Egner’s extradition and try him for the “organization and instigation of genocide, commission of genocide, and war crime against civilian population” from December 1941 into May 1942.

According to Vukcevic’s office, Egner is a former member of the Gestapo Department IV and SS deputy commander. He allegedly took part in the killing of Jewish women and children, whom he forced into vans equipped with gas chambers. “Acting as guard on a number of occasions,” Egner “supervised groups of Jews transported from the [Belgrade] Gestapo headquarters to the camp located at the Old Fairground...”

In formal papers requesting the war crimes investigation, prosecutor Vukcevic says “all of the detainees were killed in the mobile gas chambers as they moved from the Old Fairground to Jajinci, a village situated at the foot of Mt. Avala outside Belgrade. Once in the village, the victims’ bodies were dumped into a number of mass gravesites.””

Previously...

blog:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/11/new_documents_complexity_likel.php

Crime & Punishment
“New Documents, Complexity, Likely to Delay Trial of Bellevue Man, Peter Egner, as a Nazi War Criminal”
By Rick Anderson, Friday, Nov. 20 2009 @ 10:10AM
Categories: Crime & Punishment

SNIPPET: “Egner, in documents filed by his attorneys, admits to “having briefly accompanied prisoners on one occasion during a transfer from Belgrade to Avala in an open bus and on one occasion during a transfer from Belgrade to Semlin also in an open bus. On both occasions, Defendant sat in the back of the bus with the prisoners. Following these brief assignments, he returned to his post in Belgrade, where he worked doing clerical office work. He had no knowledge as to the prisoners’ ethnic or religious background, the reason for their transfer, nor any knowledge about what happened to them after arrival at Avala or Semlin.”

He conceded he “occasionally served as an interpreter in the public reception area of the main lobby of the Belgrade police station run by German occupying forces.” But he denied participating in interrogations and claimed to have no knowledge of whether individuals for whom he interpreted were “political prisoners.””

Previously...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046386/posts

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046386/posts?page=34#34

The Justice Dept. release, for reference.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

CRM
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

Justice Department Moves to Revoke U.S. Citizenship of Former Member of Nazi Killing Unit

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice has requested that a federal court in Seattle revoke the U.S. citizenship of a Bellevue, Wash., resident based on evidence of his role in a Nazi unit that participated in the mass murder of more than 17,000 Serbian civilians during World War II, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Matthew Friedrich and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan for the Western District of Washington announced today. Most of the victims of this mass murder were Jewish men, women and children.

A complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington alleges that Peter Egner, 86, who was born in Yugoslavia, joined the Nazi-controlled Security Police and Security Service in German-occupied Belgrade, Serbia, in April 1941 and served through September 1943. The complaint alleges that during the first nine months of Egner’s service in this organization, it operated as an Einsatzgruppe, a Nazi mobile killing unit. Captured Nazi documents reflect that in the fall of 1941, Egner’s unit participated in executing 11,164 individuals, most of them Serbian Jewish men, as well as some communists, suspected communists, and Roma and Sinti (Gypsies). In early 1942, the Security Police and Security Service Belgrade carried out the murder of 6,280 Serbian Jewish women and children. Prior to their deaths, these victims were confined in a concentration camp at Semlin, outside of Belgrade. In a process that continued daily for a period of approximately two months, the women and children were taken from the camp and forced into a specially equipped van where they were asphyxiated with carbon monoxide gas while being transported to Avala, an execution and mass burial site near Belgrade.

The complaint alleges that Egner has admitted volunteering to serve in the Security Police and Security Service and guarding prisoners as they were being transferred by that organization to Avala and to the Semlin concentration camp. Egner also admitted serving as an interpreter during interrogations of political prisoners. Interrogations conducted by the Security Police and Security Service Belgrade sometimes involved severe torture, and prisoners were often executed once their interrogations were completed.

“The Nazi unit in which Peter Egner is alleged to have participated was responsible for countless deaths and unimaginable human suffering,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich. “By bringing this action today, we again declare our unwavering commitment to the principle that participants in Nazi crimes should not be afforded the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship.”

Egner entered the United States in 1960 and became a U.S. citizen in 1966. The complaint asserts that his citizenship should be revoked because both his Nazi service and his concealment of that service in applying for citizenship rendered him ineligible for citizenship.

“The government alleges that Peter Egner served in a notorious Nazi unit that murdered thousands of Serbian Jews and other unarmed civilians,” said Office of Special Investigations (OSI) Director Eli M. Rosenbaum. “No one who participated, as we allege the defendant did, in the diabolical Nazi program of persecution is entitled to retain U.S. citizenship.”

“Allowing someone who participated in Nazi-sponsored crimes to continue possessing U.S. citizenship would be an affront to our country’s values and to the memory of the millions of innocent people murdered by the Nazi regime,” said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan.

The proceedings initiated today are a result of OSI’s ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States. Since OSI began operations in 1979, it has won cases against 107 participants in Nazi persecution. In addition, more than 180 individuals have been barred from entering the country in recent years as a result of OSI’s “Watchlist” program, which is enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.

The complaint contains only allegations and it is the government’s burden to prove the allegations by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence.

34 posted on July 16, 2008 12:29:12 PM PDT by SJackson

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