TWO suspected Nazi war criminals living in Scotland are being investigated by police, the Sunday Herald can reveal. Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Crimes Against Humanity Unit (Cahu) - part of its anti-terrorism branch - have been passed details of two men who may have been involved in atrocities against Jews during the second world war.
Information about one individual was given to police in London last summer by Holocaust researcher Dr Stephen Ankier. Another name was reported by Ankier in March this year.
The police investigation into the two men, both of whom are believed to live in the central belt, signals one of the most significant developments in the hunt for war criminals in Scotland.
Some 1500 members of the SS Galizien division, responsible for massacring civilians in Poland and Ukraine, were brought to Scotland in 1947 and held in prison camps at Dalkeith, Midlothian and Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire.
Another 4000 Category A German prisoners - including the most ardent of Afrika Korps and SS troops - were sent to Cultybraggan camp, near Comrie, in Perthshire.
After the war, many prisoners of war were allowed to settle. The two men now under investigation are the first in Scotland to come to the attention of the police since the failed attempt by Lithuanian prosecutors to force the extradition of Anton Gecas in 2001.
Gecas, an Edinburgh-based guest house owner, was wanted for his part in the execution of 34,000 Jews, Soviet citizens and PoWs while serving with the 12th Lithuanian Police Battalion.
Although the then justice minister Jim Wallace authorised the start of extradition proceedings, Gecas was deemed too ill to face trial. He died in Scotland in 2001, aged 85.
Ankier - who is refusing to name either man or reveal their whereabouts - said he reported the first one to police on the back of "suspicions" expressed by locals. It is thought that the second may have served in the Hungarian gendarmerie, responsible for rounding up thousands of Jews and deporting them to the Auschwitz death camp.
Ankier said the man had been heard "openly bragging" about his part in the deportations and had given "vivid descriptions" of the trains to Auschwitz. Ankier estimated that there may be up to 50 Nazi war criminals living in Scotland. He said: "There is no time limit on murder. These men would now be in their 80s but just because you are 80 years old it does not mean you should not be accountable for something you did 60 years earlier. Murder is murder."
Describing the situation now as "the last opportunity" to have Nazi criminals face trial, he urged the public, including "honourable" former German soldiers, to pass information to the police. Ankier, whose Jewish parents fled from Poland to Britain in 1936, added: "There are Nazi criminals in the community and they need to be brought to court."
Lord Greville Janner, founder and secretary of the all-party parliamentary war crimes group, described the development as "potentially very significant". Efraim Zuroff, director of the Nazihunting organisation, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, in Jerusalem, added: "It would not surprise me if Nazi war criminals were found to be living in the UK. But there is a real lack of political will to bring these people to justice."
The Metropolitan Police confirmed they were investigating Ankier's claims.
Anthony Sawoniuk, who died in November aged 84, is the only person successfully prosecuted in a British court for Nazi war crimes. He was given two life sentences in 1999 for the murder of 18 Jews in Nazi-occupied Belarus.
In 2001, suspected Nazi war criminal Konrad Kalejs died after fleeing the UK to escape prosecution.
NEED TO KNOW THE FACTS Detectives are investigating two men in Scotland suspected of committing Nazi atrocities during the second world war.
THE BACKGROUND In 2001, Edinburgh-based Anton Gecas died in Scotland as Lithuanian prosecutors attempted to extradite him to face trial. Gecas's Nazi links had been known to the UK authorities since the mid-1980s.
NEED TO KNOW MORE?
www. wiesenthal. com The site of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
www. met. police. uk London Metropolitan Police.
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