PROSECUTORS APPEAL SENTENCING OF CONVICTED NAZI

UNCLAS VILNIUS 000379 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/OHI E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KJUS PHUM CPAS LH SUBJECT: PROSECUTORS APPEAL SENTENCING OF CONVICTED NAZI COLLABORATOR REF: VILNIUS 00316 SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. Lithuania,s Prosecutor General,s Office appealed on April 14 the lack of a sentence for convicted Nazi collaborator Algimantas Mykolas Dailide. The 85 year-old Dailide was convicted of crimes against Jews for his collaboration with the Nazis on March 27, but the court imposed no sentence due to Dailide's old age and poor health (reftel). The prosecutors are appealing for a five-year sentence. Dailide also appealed the conviction and maintains his innocence. End summary. PREVIOUS CASES -------------- ¶2. This is the fourth instance involving a Lithuanian Security Police officer and suspected WWII war criminal who has lost his U.S. citizenship. A Vilnius Court found Kazimieras Gimzauskas guilty of war crimes in 2001, five years after the U.S. revoked his citizenship, but did not impose any punishment after finding Gimzauskas medically incompetent. Aleksandaras Lileikis died during his trial in 2000, four years after losing U.S. citizenship. Adolfus Milius lost American citizenship in 1998 and died in 1999, before the GOL had charged him. BACKGROUND ON DAILIDE'S U.S. CITIZENSHIP -------------- ¶3. Dailide entered the United States in 1950, telling immigration authorities that he had worked as a forester during the war. In 1997, the U.S. District Court in Cleveland revoked Dailide's U.S. citizenship because of his involvement in Nazi persecution, and in 2003 the U.S. Immigration Appeals Board deported him to Germany, where he resides now. COMMENT -------------- ¶4. The prosecutor's appeal came after we publicly expressed disappointment at the lack of a sentence, a sentiment that the Government of Israel and some international organizations echoed. This is a promising development in Lithuania,s mixed performance on prosecuting perpetrators of the Holocaust, in which 90% of the country,s pre-war Jewish population of 220,000 Lithuania,s was murdered. Of four known Nazi collaborators from the Lithuanian Security Police, three have been convicted, but none has faced imprisonment. KELLY