Last update - 00:00 01/03/2007
Hungarian court rejects bid to enforce war criminal's 1944 conviction
By The Associated Press
BUDAPEST - The 1944 sentencing of a Hungarian man convicted in 1944 and 1946 of war crimes committed during World War II cannot be enforced because the man was released from prison by the Nazis shortly after his 1944 conviction, a Hungarian court said Thursday, announcing a ruling it made earlier this month.
The court said the ruling was made on February 19, and was made public on Thursday.
It can be appealed within eight days, the court said.
Sandor Kepiro, 93, was identified by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as having been convicted twice in Hungarian courts, in 1944 and 1946, but never punished for his alleged role in killings committed by Hungarian forces in Novi Sad, Serbia.
Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center's office in Israel, provided authorities with information about the 1944 ruling and asked that the 10-year prison sentence against Kepiro be enforced.
The Budapest Municipal Court issued a statement saying the ruling by a Hungarian military court which sentenced Kepiro to 10 years in 1944 cannot be enforced.
Kepiro, who moved back to Hungary in 1996 after decades in Argentina, says he was the victim of a show trial in 1944 and that the ruling was later annulled. He has denied the accusations.