Ex-Nazi guard should lose citizenship-Canada court
13 Nov 2007 22:47:11 GMT Source: Reuters
(Updates reaction) By Allan Dowd VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Canada should revoke the citizenship of a Ukrainian-born man who lied about his past as a Nazi prison guard when he entered Canada in the 1950s, a court ruled on Tuesday. But Federal Court Judge James O'Reilly said immigration officials had failed to prove that Michael Seifert was also the "Beast of Bolzano", who tortured and killed prisoners at Italy's Bolzano prison camp during World War Two -- a charge he has been convicted of in absentia by an Italian court. Canadian courts, in a separate proceeding, have already ruled that Seifert can be extradited to Italy because of the conviction. Seifert has acknowledged serving at the camp but has denied involvement in torture or murder. Judge O'Reilly ruled that Seifert lied when he immigrated to Canada in 1951 by claiming he had been born in Estonia and hiding the fact that he been a prison guard, because he knew that would make him ineligible. Canada barred former members of the Nazi SS and related units such as the Nazi SD because of their involvement in concentration camps and with other war crimes. Seifert was born in 1924 in a German-speaking town in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, and began work as a prison guard for the Nazi SD after the German occupation. He was transferred to Italy in 1944 and stayed there until the war ended. He eventually immigrated to Canada and moved to the Pacific Coast city of Vancouver, where he was employed as a mill worker, and had a family. O'Reilly rejected Seifert's claim that he lied in his visa application because he was afraid he would eventually be forced to return to the Soviet Union, where he would be killed as a traitor. The court's ruling was a "finding of fact" after Seifert appealed an Immigration Department's attempt to revoke his citizenship, but the final decision is up to the Canadian government. Former prisoners in Bolzano, which held Italian political prisoners and Jews awaiting transfer to Germany, identified Seifert as one of the "Two Ukrainians" -- guards involved in the torture and murder of at least eight prisoners. An Italian military court convicted Seifert in 2000 and sentenced him to life in prison. He was arrested by Canada in 2002 and, in a videotaped interview with police, identified himself in a photograph wearing a Nazi uniform. Judge O'Reilly said prisoners were abused at the camp, but conflicting witness statements during this case, years after the fact, made it impossible to say for sure if Seifert was one of the killers. "A lot of time has passed," O'Reilly wrote. Seifert's attorney was not immediately available for comment after the finding. He has appealed the extradition ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Canadian Jewish Congress praised the court's recommendation to revoke Seifert's citizenship, saying the ruling on Seifert's duties at Bolzano meant he was involved in the transfer of prisoners to concentration camps. "He was involved literally in the Nazi machine of death," CJC chief executive Bernie Farber. The judge's ruling on the "Beast of Bolzano" allegations should not weaken the separate extradition case, Farber said. Between 1,000 and 3,000 people with Nazi pasts were able to get into Canada illegally between 1947 and 1956, but only two have had their citizenship revoked and three cases are pending a government decision, Farber said. "Canada's history is on this is absolutely dreadful," he said. (Reporting by Allan Dowd; Editing by Peter Galloway)
