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Serbia issues arrest warrant for US Nazi war crimes suspect

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor announced Friday that it has issued an international warrant for the arrest of alleged Nazi war criminal and naturalized American citizen Peter Egner. Head Serbian prosecutor Vladmir Vukcevic has accused Egner of having been a member of Einsatzgruppe, an SS paramilitary outfit alleged to be responsible for the deaths of more than 17,000 Serbian Jews and other minorities in Belgrade during the German occupation of Serbia in World War II. Egner admitted to federal officials in 2007 that he had been a member of the squad, which is alleged to have rounded up women and children in specially modified vans to gas them with carbon monoxide. He is currently fighting efforts by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to revoke his citizenship, which would allow the government to extradite him to Serbia to stand trial on numerous counts of war crimes. Vukcevic announced in April that he would ask the US for Egner's extradition. In July 2008, Serbian prosecutors confirmed that they were gathering evidence for a case against Egner. Earlier that same week, the DOJ filed a complaint in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington seeking to revoke Egner's US citizenship. Egner became a US citizen in 1966 but failed to disclose his Nazi service on his citizenship application. The DOJ argued that he was ineligible for citizenship both because of his service and because he concealed that information on his application.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 02, 2010 (boomark / email).