The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre has said that Australia risked becoming an international joke if it accepted alleged death camp officer Konrad Kalejs following his expulsion from Britain. The Australian Government has quite rightly taken that risk. In the end, Australia will be seen as applying the rule of law to the case. Australian authorities require evidence before they can arbitrarily refuse entry to the country of one of its citizens. Australian authorities will require enough evidence to arrest and charge Mr Kalejs under the War Crimes Act or evidence that he obtained his Australian citizenship by fraud before it can be taken away so that he can be deported to Latvia. The Wiesenthal Centre alleges that Mr Kalejs, 86, was a member of a death squad in Latvia during World War II. In response, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock says Australia will not be bullied into banning Mr Kalejs’ return.
Mr Ruddock is right. Australian citizenship carries with it a right of residence and a right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. If Australian authorities deported a citizen, it would breach that right. Indeed, it would be stooping to the very arbitrary rule and abrogation of the rule of law that was so repulsive in the Nazi regime.
By all means Australian authorities should assess, as quickly as possible, whether Mr Kalejs obtained his citizenship by fraud and whether there is enough evidence to mount a case to revoke it. And Australian authorities should assess the evidence to make a war crimes charge. The latter, however, is fraught with difficulty. Britain, which has similar war-crimes laws as Australia and similar procedures for prosecution has not moved to arrest Mr Kalejs. It has moved to expel him, as it is entitled to do, merely on the ground that he is not a British citizen and therefore has no right of abode in Britain.
In Australia, the record shows the difficulty of chasing alleged war criminals so long after the war. Mr Kalejs is one of six men in Australia who have been accused of war crimes. The Federal Government’s special investigations unit looked at the cases and eventually laid charges against three men living in Adelaide. The first trial resulted in an acquittal. The second resulted in dismissal of the charges at the committal stage and the charges against the third were dropped because of the accused’s poor health.
The other three men, including Mr Kalejs, have been accused of war crimes but never charged. One is believed to be close to death in a Melbourne nursing home.
The shame is that far more stringent measures were not taken in Europe in the years immediately after the war to hunt down war criminals and that more stringent measures were not taken in Australia to screen out alleged war criminals. One of the major reasons was the intervention of the Cold War.
Horrible crime were committed during World War II, they should not be forgotten or forgiven. Where there is evidence the perpetrators should be prosecuted and punished. However, after so many years it would be a rare case where there was enough evidence. Witnesses have died and their identification of alleged perpetrators must be questioned after so long a time. Given the history, it would be counter-productive for Australian authorities to press charges if the likely result is an acquittal.