INDEPTH: WAR CRIMES
Canada and war criminals: A timeline
CBC News Online | June 28, 2005
1946:
German SS Maj.-Gen. Kurt Meyer, accused of "direct or indirect responsibility" in the execution of 48 Canadian prisoners of war, becomes the first war criminal to be tried by Canadian military authorities. He is convicted and sentenced to death, but ends up serving nine years in prison, part of it in a New Brunswick penitentiary, before he dies in 1961. His trial is held in Germany.
July 13, 1947:
The British Dominions secretary issues a memorandum addressed to the "White
Dominions." It reads: "In our view, the punishment of war criminals is more a matter
of discouraging future generations than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual … We are convinced that it is now necessary to dispose of the past as soon as possible."
QUICK FACTS
Regimes the Canadian government has designated as having engaged in gross human rights violations, war crimes or crimes against humanity. Senior officials of these regimes, including senior diplomats and senior military officers, are considered complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity.
- Designated June 16, 1993, and extended on Aug. 15, 1997:
The Bosnian Serb regime between March 27, 1992, and Oct. 10, 1996.
- Designated Oct. 12,1993:
The Siad Barre regime in Somalia between 1969 and 1991.
- Designated April 8, 1994:
The former military governments in Haiti between 1971 and 1986, and between 1991 and 1994, except the period August-December 1993.
- Designated Oct. 21, 1994:
The former Marxist regimes of Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992.
- Designated Sept. 3, 1996, amended Sept. 9, 2004:
The governments of Iraq under Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein in power from 1968 to May 22, 2003.
- Designated April 27, 1998:
The government of Rwanda under President Habyarimana between October 1990 and April 1994, as well as the interim government in power between April 1994 and July 1994.
- Designated June 30, 1999, amended March 14, 2001:
The governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia (under Slobodan Milosevic) between Feb. 28, 1998, and Oct. 7, 2000.
- Designated March 14, 2001, amended Sept. 9, 2004:
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan from Sept. 27, 1996, to Dec. 22, 2001.
- Designated Nov. 21, 2003:
The government of Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam, covering the period of Sept. 12, 1974 to May 21, 1991.
Dec. 19, 1950:
Helmut Rauca, a master sergeant in Hitler's SS during the Second World War, leaves Germany bound for Canada. He arrives in St. John, N.B., and finds employment as a farm worker, bricklayer, dishwasher, restaurant manager, dry cleaner and innkeeper. He later settles in Toronto.
1953:
Imre Finta, a police officer in Hungary during the Second World War, emigrates to Canada and begins a career in the restaurant business.
1956:
Rauca is granted Canadian citizenship. Finta is granted Canadian citizenship.
1961:
A West German state prosecutor issues an arrest warrant for Rauca. He's accused of murdering 11,584 Jewish men, women and children during the war.
1972:
West Germany asks the RCMP for help in locating Rauca, who they believe had emigrated to Canada. Investigations suggest he is in the country, but privacy laws prevent government agencies from giving out his exact address.
1979:
Bill C-215, to provide for the loss of Canadian citizenship by those convicted of war crimes, is introduced, debated and withdrawn.
1982:
Robert Kaplan, federal solicitor general at the time, intervenes and tells the passport office to divulge Rauca's personal information, on the grounds of fulfilling Canada's extradition obligations.
Nov. 4, 1982:
An Ontario judge rules there is sufficient evidence to commit Rauca to a German trial.
April 12, 1983:
The Ontario Court of Appeal dismisses Rauca's appeal.
May 20, 1983:
Rauca is extradited to West Germany.
Oct. 29, 1983:
Rauca dies while awaiting trial.
February 1985:
Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals is established under Mr. Justice Jules Deschênes.
January 1987:
The Deschênes Commission releases its report. In the report are three lists of individuals containing 883 names. Deschênes's principal recommendation was that the RCMP and the Department of Justice investigate everyone on the lists.
March 1987:
The federal government announces that those alleged to have been involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity would be subject to criminal prosecution or revocation of citizenship, and deportation.
December 1987:
The first war crimes charges are laid against Imre Finta.
Dec. 18, 1989:
Michael Pawlowski is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is accused of killing about 410 Jews and 80 non-Jewish Poles in the Soviet Republic of Byelorussia in the summer of 1942.
January 1990:
Stephen Reistetter is charged with kidnapping 3,000 Jews in 1942, while serving as an official of the Hlinka party in wartime Slovakia, in order to send them to Nazi death camps.
May 25, 1990:
Imre Finta, the first person to be tried as a war criminal in Canada, is acquitted of charges of manslaughter, kidnapping, unlawful confinement and robbery. He had been accused of committing the acts while forcing the deportation of 8,617 Hungarian Jews. Finta's lawyers argued that their client was only following orders, like RCMP officers who removed Japanese-Canadians from their homes and sent them to camps during the Second World War.
March 1991:
The Crown drops charges against Stephen Reistetter citing a lack of evidence.
February 1992:
The Crown drops charges against Pawlowski after courts refuse to allow the prosecution to send a judicial commission to the Soviet Union to collect evidence.
1992:
Ontario Court of Appeal upholds Finta's acquittal.
Botanist Jacob Luitjens is stripped of his Canadian citizenship and deported to the Netherlands. There he is jailed for a previous conviction of collaborating with the Nazis during the Second World War.
November 1992:
Leon Mugesera flees Rwanda shortly after giving a speech in which he allegedly used the rhetoric of violence and aggression to rally his fellow Hutus into slaughtering the country's Tutsi minority.
August 1993:
Mugesera is granted permanent resident status in Canada.
1994:
The Supreme Court of Canada upholds Finta's acquittal. The court also rules that the Criminal Code legislation used to prosecute Finta is unconstitutional.
The government announces that instead of trying to prosecute war criminals under the Criminal Code, Ottawa would attempt to revoke citizenship and deport people who lied about their backgrounds in order to gain entry to Canada.
April 6, 1994:
Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira are killed when a rocket strikes their plane outside Kigali airport. The attack sparks violence and an exodus of refugees; in two weeks more than one million people flee the country. Over the next two months, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus are slaughtered in what becomes known as the Rwandan genocide.
Nov. 22, 1996:
A Montreal newspaper – The Gazette – reports that a private investigator from Brooklyn, posing as a professor from a fictitious university, had interviewed and obtained confessions from 58 people on a list of suspected war criminals. Seven of them admitted to killing Jews during the Second World War. The list had been provided to Stephen Ramban by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Yad Vashem, a Holocaust memorial in Israel.
December 2003:
Imre Finta dies in Toronto at the age of 92.
2004:
The federal government reports that in the first five years of its War Crimes Program, 2,011 people were denied entry to Canada on suspicion they were involved in war crimes. Only 34 were turned away in the 1997-1998 fiscal year, when the numbers were first tracked.
June 28, 2005:
The Supreme Court of Canada restores a deportation order against Leon Mugesera. In an 8-0 decision, the court rules that Mugesera incited murder, genocide and hatred in a fiery speech in November 1992.
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