Slovakian Jews call for extradition of alleged Holocaust war criminal

(JTA) — Slovakian Jewish leaders have called on Hungary to extradite an alleged Holocaust war criminal.

Laszlo Csizsik-Csatary, a 97-year-old accused of sending 15,700 Jews to their deaths in 1944, was an officer at the time in the Hungarian Royal Police. His town, Kosice, then part of Hungary, is now part of Slovakia.

The call for extradition came from Jaroslav Franek, spokesman for the Slovakian Federation of Jewish Communities, according to the Associated Press.

Last week, after being tipped off to his location by reporters from the Sun, a British tabloid, Hungarian authorities placed Csizsik-Csatary under house arrest and charged him with “unlawful torture of human beings.”

He faces life in prison. In 1948, Czechoslovakia sentenced him in absentia to death. Slovakia’s justice minister is looking into the issue.

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