Son comes to defense of alleged war criminal

The son of the suspected Nazi war criminal Charles Zentai, who is facing possible extradition from Australia to Hungary, has said that an interview he taped with his father more than 10 years ago proved his innocence. Police had arrested the 83-year-old Zentai, a Hungarian-born Australian citizen, at his home in t Perth earlier this month on suspicion of beating to death a Jewish teenager in Budapest during World War II. He has been under investigation by Hungary's Foreign Ministry since December 2004 on suspicion he murdered 18-year-old Peter Balazs in November 1944, for failing to wear a yellow star identifying him as a Jew. Zentai, who emigrated to Australia in 1950 and became an Australian citizen soon after, has denied the allegation. Zentai's son, Ernie Steiner, said that an audio tape he recorded to document his family history with his father in 1994 – well before the allegations surfaced – proved his father could not have murdered Balazs as he had no longer been in Budapest.