Haaretz
Sivan 29, 5765
Israel has refused for a
second time to extradite to Poland a Jewish man accused of crimes against
German prisoners just after the end of World War II, prosecutors said
Wednesday.
Polish prosecutors received the refusal in a letter from
the Israeli Justice Ministry saying "there was no basis whatsoever to
extradite" Solomon Morel, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, prosecutor
Ewa Koj told The Associated Press.
Morel commanded a communist-run
camp for German prisoners in southern Poland in 1945 after Soviet troops
had occupied the country. Polish authorities accuse him of genocide by
seeking to exterminate German prisoners by starving them to death,
depriving them of medical care as well as carrying out torture and
sanctioning torture by his subordinates.
Polish prosecutors charge
that Morel is responsible for the deaths of at least 1,500 prisoners in
the Swietochlowice camp.
Koj, a prosecutor with the government-run
National Remembrance Institute in Katowice, said the Israeli ministry
argued that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out. The
institute investigates communist and Nazi-era crimes.
Koj quoted
the letter as saying: "In light of the facts, there appears to be no basis
to charge Mr. Morel with serious crimes let alone crimes of 'genocide' or
'crimes against the Polish nation.' If anything, it would seem to us that
Mr. Morel and his family were clearly victims of crimes of genocide
committed by the Nazis and the Polish collaborators.
Koj criticized
Israel's decision, saying: "How can a statute of limitations run out on
crimes against humanity?"
"There should be one measure for judging
war criminals, irrespective whether they are German, Israeli, or any other
nationality," she added.
Israel, which has no extradition treaty
with Poland, in 1998 refused an extradition request based on charges of
torture; the current request broadened the charges to genocide, for which
there is no statute of limitations in Polish law.
Polish historians
generally agree that the communist government imprisoned 100,000 Germans,
mostly civilians deemed threats to the state after World War II. At least
15,000 died due to ill treatment, and the rest were freed by
1950.
Morel left Poland for Israel in 1994, after accusations
against him surfaced.