19 February 2008
A Nazi war criminal known as the 'Beast of Bolzano' has been extradited from Canada to Italy, where he had been sentenced to life in prison in his absence. Canada's Supreme Court had refused a last appeal against the extradition of 83-year-old Michael Seifert, convicted for the murder and torture of prisoners in a Nazi transit camp in northern Italy. The former SS corporal was the commander of the camp at Bolzano, a northern Italian city close to the Austrian border, from June 1944 to April 1945.
Military prosecutors in Verona said Seifert was taken to a military prison at Caserta, in the southern Campania region. Seifert, who had been living in Canada since 1951, was found guilty of eleven murders by the military tribunal in Verona in 2000 and the life sentence was confirmed in October 2002. In 2001 he acknowledged having served as an SS guard in Bolzano were Jews and political prisoners were held awaiting transfer to extermination camps in Germany. However, he rejected the torturing and killing charges and appealed the life sentence. His appeal was rejected the same year. Seifert was accused of having tortured prisoners with broken bottles, clubs, ice-cold water and fire.
According to the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), the extradition demonstrated that Canada was not a safe hiding place for people convicted for war crimes. Bernie Farber, CEO of the CJC, applauded the extradition. "It's a long time coming for us, and especially for Holocaust survivors who had to share their adopted country with their victimizers," Farber said, adding: "It sends a strong message that Canada will seek justice and that war criminals will never be able to hide."
The CJC estimates that between one and three thousand war criminals managed to get into Canada illegally between 1947 and 1956. om 2006 does not alter the long-term trend of rising ant-Semitic incident levels since the late 1990s, according to the CST.
