László Csatáry, convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity during WWII, lost his appeal before the Slovak Supreme Court on April 24 and the life sentence delivered by Košice Regional Court in January remains in effect.
"The appeal was submitted late, and the convict didn't meet the deadline," the TASR newswire was told on Thursday, April 25 by the Supreme Court chairman's office. Košice Regional Court is set to decide about the exact form of the sentence at its next session, which will be held in camera.
Csatáry, now 97, served as a commander in the Košice Jewish ghetto during WWII and is suspected of assisting in the murder of as many as 15,700 Jews who were deported from Košice (then under Hungarian occupation, and known as Kassa) to concentration camps. A Czechoslovak court sentenced him to death in absentia back in 1948. At the time, Csatáry had already fled to Canada, which stripped him of his Canadian citizenship in 1997. The UK's Sun newspaper tracked him down in Budapest last July. Košice Regional Court on January 31, 2013 changed the death sentence to a life sentence.
Csatáry is currently being held in Hungary.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
