NAZI LEAVES POUNDS 400,000 TO SECRET SON
Fury over Gecas will
THE secret son of suspected war criminal Anton Gecas is to share his pounds 400,000 fortune. The former Nazi died before he could be extradited from Scotland to stand trial for war crimes. His son Anthony, 37, and daughter Ingrid, 25, will split the cash from selling off Gecas's plush home. Gecas never mentioned his children during the long-running legal battle to avoid standing trial for his involvement in the murder of 32,000 civilians during World War II. While Gecas's wife Astrid, 66, will be left the house initially, the profits from any future sale will be shared between the couple's children after her death. The provision for his family is set out in a will written almost 16 years ago, which was obtained by the Sunday Mail last week. Nazi-hunters who tried unsuccessfully to bring Gecas to court said the former Lithuanian Nazi officer had no right to pass on his wealth. His main asset is the semi-detached villa in Edinburgh's upmarket Newington district, which he ran as a guest house. Property experts say the house would fetch around pounds 400,000. Gecas's case sparked fury among Nazi hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. Dr Efraim Zuroff, who failed to get Gecas into a courtroom despite repeated efforts, said: "He showed no remorse for his crimes throughout his life and he is continuing that now. "He should have given some money to a project to educate people about the Holocaust or something similar. "His estate is of interest to us because it could contain items such as diaries of his time in the war. "But we are in absolutely no doubt about his guilt." Anthony Gecas was sitting on a wall in the Gecas family garden last week when a Sunday Mail investigator approached him. He claimed he was going into the house to find his solicitor. He never came out. Ingrid is thought to live nearby. He wasn't alive when Gecas wrote his will in November 1985. Gecas escaped prosecution for the final time earlier this year, despite evidence linking him to the killing of civilians, most of them Jews. From 1941, he served as a platoon commander in a Nazi police unit but ended the war on the Allied side as part of the Polish army. He came to Britain in 1941. Gecas unsuccessfully sued STV after a documentary branded him a war criminal. Some Nazi-hunters claim he was given protection because of his links with British intelligence. KGB papers discovered in 1994 listed him as an MI6 asset. Gecas died last month, aged 85, following a stroke. His funeral was held in secret under the name A. Smith to avoid protests. His death came six months after the Scottish Executive turned down the Lithuanian government's request for his extradition because of his ill-health.
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