Experts: Solid evidence in Hungary war crimes case

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Historians and legal experts say that the evidence against a 97-year-old alleged Holocaust-era war criminal put under house arrest in Hungary is much stronger than in a similar case last year that ended in acquittal.

Laszlo Csatary is suspected by prosecutors of abusing Jews and helping deport thousands of them in 1944 while he was a police officer in the Slovak city of Kosice, at the time part of Hungary.

In 2011, Sandor Kepiro, was acquitted of war crime charges by a Budapest court because of insufficient evidence. He died in September at age 97, while the verdict was being appealed.

Adam Gellert, an expert in international criminal law who has been researching Csatary’s actions in Slovak and Hungarian archives, says that Csatary’s “is a much, much stronger case.”