Third most-wanted Nazi suspect charged in Germany
BERLIN (AP) — The world’s third most-wanted Nazi suspect, who lived undisturbed for decades after World War II, has been charged in Germany with participating in the murder of 430,000 Jews while serving as a low-ranking guard at a death camp.
Samuel Kunz, 88, had long been ignored by the German justice system, partly because of a lack of interest in going after relatively minor Nazi figures. But in the past 10 years, a younger generation of prosecutors has sought to bring all surviving suspects to justice.
Authorities recently stumbled over Kunz’s case as they were studying old documents from German post-wars trials about an SS training camp named Trawniki. The papers were being reviewed in connection with the trial of John Demjanjuk, the 90-year-old retired autoworker on trial in Munich for allegedly serving as a guard at the infamous Sobibor camp.
Kunz was named the No. 3 suspect in April by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He ranked fairly low in the Nazi hierarchy, but he was among the most-wanted suspects because of the large number of Jews he is accused of helping to kill.
Kunz had been living quietly at his home near the western city of Bonn. He received a letter last week saying he had been charged with three different cases of participating in the murder of Jews, authorities said.
He allegedly served as a guard at the Belzec camp in occupied Poland from January 1942 to July 1943.
In addition to those charges, he is accused of fatally shooting 10 Jews in two other incidents related to unspecified “personal excesses,” prosecutor Christoph Goeke told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Prosecutors allege both Kunz and the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, who was deported to Germany from the U.S. last year, trained as guards at Trawniki. In the 1960s, Kunz testified about his time there in a different trial, but he was never indicted himself.
Reached by phone at his home, Kunz said he did not want to talk about the allegations against him and hung up.
Kunz was not detained because officials who interviewed him did not believe he would try to flee, a person familiar with the case said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal details of the investigation.
At the top of the Wiesenthal Center list of most-wanted Nazis is Sandor Kepiro, a former Hungarian gendarmerie officer accused of involvement in the deaths of 1,200 civilians in Serbia. He was questioned in September by prosecutors in Budapest, where he lives across the street from a synagogue.
Second on the list is Milivoj Asner, who served as police chief in Croatia during the war. He now lives in Austria, which has refused to extradite him to Croatia on medical grounds.
Kunz’s case has been sent to the state court in Bonn, where officials were considering whether to hold a trial — a standard procedural step in Germany, Goeke said from Dortmund.
A spokesman for the Bonn court declined to comment on the matter.
Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Wiesenthal Center, said Kunz participated in the so-called Operation Reinhard to wipe out Polish Jews.
The indictment “is a very positive development,” Zuroff told the AP from Jerusalem. “It reflects recent changes in the German prosecution policy, which have significantly enlarged the number of suspects who will be brought to justice.”
Kunz, an ethnic German, was born in August 1921 on Russia’s Volga River. As a soldier with the Red Army during World War II, he was captured by the Germans and given the choice of either staying at the Chelm prisoner of war camp or cooperating with the Nazis, according to Klaus Hillenbrand, an expert who has written several books on the Nazi period.
Kunz agreed to work with the Nazis and, after he was trained at Trawniki, was transferred to Belzec where he served as a camp guard, Hillenbrand said.
After the war, he moved to Bonn, worked for many years at a federal ministry and was granted German citizenship.
After several German media outlets recently reported Kunz’s alleged Nazi past in connection with the Demjanjuk trial, the Dortmund prosecutor’s office started an investigation into the allegations, Hillenbrand said.
Despite a recent push by prosecutors to bring charges against Nazi suspects, their efforts often come too late.
Former Nazi SS Capt. Erich Steidtmann died Sunday from a heart attack at his home in Hannover. He had been investigated several times, including for alleged involvement in killings at the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, but authorities never had sufficient proof to charge him.
Adolf Storms, a 90-year-old former SS sergeant who was No. 4 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted Nazi war crimes suspects, died earlier this month before he could be brought to trial.
Prosecutors were investigating Storms in connection with 58 counts of murder for his alleged involvement in a massacre of Jewish forced laborers in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch Schuetzen.
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Egypt: US assurances may boost direct peace talks
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt said Wednesday it has received U.S. assurances that may help in restarting direct peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.
Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad did not disclose details of the U.S. assurances, which come on the eve of a crucial Arab League meeting to determine the future of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is under intense international pressure to restart direct peace talks with Israel frozen in 2008.
Arab foreign ministers will meet Thursday to consider the matter of direct talks, potentially adding more pressure on the Palestinian president.
Abbas has insisted he will only upgrade the current U.S.-mediated indirect talks with Israel if it agrees to a halt on settlement construction and accept a Palestinian state in West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to be pinned down on a framework for negotiations.
This week The Associated Press obtained a Palestinian document that revealed that Mitchell warned Abbas that if he does not agree to direct talks, President Barack Obama will not be able to help the Palestinians achieve a state of their own.
The indirect talks and a partial Israeli freeze of settlement building will end in September.
Awwad said that Obama has committed to exerting efforts toward direct peace talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel .
He said President Hosni Mubarak has received a letter from Obama, followed by calls from Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all signaling a U.S. commitment to establish a Palestinian state.
“These are all indications which we hope are pursued and yield Arab and international consensus to launch direct peace talks with a time table and clear terms of reference,” Awwad said.
Assurances from the U.S. might convince Abbas to restart the talks.
Netanyahu has called for resumption of direct negotiations without conditions. He has accepted the concept of a Palestinian state but has refused to outline his stance on the main issues, including borders, before the talks resume.
In a speech Tuesday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said a Palestinian state must be demilitarized and recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He also demanded undefined security arrangements.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the Arab foreign ministers are looking to hear from Abbas about the reassurances he also received from the Americans.
Egyptian officials say enthusiastic engagement from Obama could help efforts to resume direct talks. But the Palestinian document noted that Mitchell demanded Palestinian agreement for direct talks before Obama gets involved.
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Judge blocks parts of Arizona immigration law
PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge dealt a serious rebuke to Arizona’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law on Wednesday when she put most of the crackdown on hold just hours before it was to take effect.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton shifts the immigration debate to the courts and sets up a lengthy legal battle that may not be decided until the Supreme Court weighs in. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said the state will likely appeal the ruling and seek to get the judge’s order overturned.
But for now, opponents of the law have prevailed: The provisions that most angered opponents will not take effect, including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.
The judge also delayed parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places — a move aimed at day laborers. In addition, the judge blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.
“Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked,” Bolton, a Clinton appointee, said in her decision.
She said the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues. Other provisions of the law, many of them slight revisions to existing Arizona immigration statute, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.
The law was signed by Brewer in April and immediately revived the national debate on immigration, making it a hot-button issue in the midterm elections. The law has inspired similar action elsewhere, prompted a boycott against Arizona and led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave the state.
Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants. Arizona is the busiest gateway into the country for illegal immigrants, and the state’s border with Mexico is awash in drugs and smugglers that authorities badly want to stop.
Brewer’s lawyers said Arizona shouldn’t have to suffer from America’s broken immigration system when it has 15,000 police officers who can arrest illegal immigrants.
“It’s a temporary bump in the road, we will move forward, and I’m sure that after consultation with our counsel we will appeal,” Brewer told The Associated Press. “The bottom line is we’ve known all along that it is the responsibility of the feds and they haven’t done their job so we were going to help them do that.”
The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law and protesters were planning large demonstrations against the measure. At least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status.
In a sign of the international interest in the law, about 100 protesters in Mexico City who had gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy broke into cheers when speakers told them about the federal judge’s ruling. The demonstrators had been monitoring the news on a laptop computer on the stage.
The crowd clapped and started chanting, “Migrants, hang on, the people are rising up!”
Gisela and Eduardo Diaz went to the Mexican consulate in Phoenix on Wednesday seeking advice because they were worried about what would happen to their 3-year-old granddaughter if they were pulled over by police and taken to a detention center.
“I knew the judge would say that part of the law was just not right,” said Diaz, a 50-year-old from Mexico City who came to Arizona on a since-expired tourist visa in 1989. “It’s the part we were worried about. This is a big relief for us.”
Opponents argued the law would lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. The U.S. Justice Department, civil rights groups and a Phoenix police officer had asked the judge for an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced.
“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law),” Bolton ruled.
Federal authorities have argued that letting the Arizona law stand would create a patchwork of immigration laws nationwide that would burden the agency that responds to immigration-status inquiries and disrupt U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries.
The core of the government’s case is that federal immigration law trumps state law — an issue known as “pre-emption” in legal circles. The judge plainly accepted that view, pointing out five portions of the law where she believed the federal government would likely succeed on its claims that U.S. law supersedes state law.
“Even though Arizona’s interests may be consistent with those of the federal government, it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce pre-empted laws,” Bolton wrote.
Supporters of the law took solace in the fact that the judge did keep several portions of the law intact, including a section that bars local governments from limiting enforcement of federal immigration laws. Those jurisdictions are commonly known as “sanctuary cities.”
“Striking down these sanctuary city policies have always been the No. 1 priority of SB1070,” said Sen. Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican who sponsored the law.
Brewer is running for another term in November and has seen her political fortunes rise because of the law’s popularity among conservatives. It’s not yet clear how the ruling will affect her campaign, but her opponent was quick to pounce.
“Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost,” said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat. “It is time to look beyond election year grandstanding and begin to repair the damage to Arizona’s image and economy.”
The law has drawn considerable support among residents in heavily Republican Arizona, where people are fed up with the problems associated with illegal immigration. Ryan Alexander, 39, says illegal immigration has helped bring down wages for jobs in America and created what he calls a slave-labor market.
“I don’t think any of that is good,” he said. “Bottom line is if you’re not supposed to be here, you shouldn’t be here, whether you’re Russian or whatever.”
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NYC looks to stop spreading bedbug infestations
NEW YORK (AP) — One of every 15 New Yorkers battled bedbugs last year, officials said Wednesday as they announced a plan to fight the spreading infestation, including a public-awareness campaign and a top entomologist to head the effort.
The bloodsucking pests, which are not known to spread disease but can cause great mental anguish with their persistent and fast-growing infestations, have rapidly multiplied throughout New York and many other U.S. cities in recent years.
Health officials and pest control specialists nationwide report surges in sightings, bites and complaints. The Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever bedbug summit last year.
In New York City, the pests have been discovered in theaters, clothing stores, office buildings, housing projects and posh apartments.
The stigma of having bedbugs — whose bites leave itchy red welts — and the elusive nature of the pests make it impossible to fully understand the problem, experts say.
But in 2009, for the first time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration included a question about bedbugs on its community health survey, and it revealed the finding to The Associated Press on Wednesday: More than 6 percent of New Yorkers who responded said they had battled the pests in the last year.
The figure would equal roughly 400,000 adults in the city, the health department said.
Data previously has been limited to government statistics on complaints and surveys of private pest-control companies, which have also reported nationwide spikes.
The Bloomberg administration fielded 537 complaints about the bugs in fiscal 2004. In fiscal 2009, there were nearly 11,000.
“This is happening globally, and I don’t think anybody has figured out exactly why,” said Daniel Kass, the city’s deputy commissioner for environmental health. “So what we’re left with is managing them and keeping them from spreading. They’re going to be with us for some time.”
Bedbugs are about the size of an apple seed and burrow into many more places than beds. They can slip into floor cracks, wall outlets, picture frames, lamps — any tiny space.
People who have bedbugs often never see them. The most obvious signs are bites, blood on bedsheets and their waste, which looks like black pepper. They are known for being extremely difficult to eradicate, and can go a year without feeding.
Bedbugs were nearly dormant for decades, and the recent comeback has experts scratching their heads. Some attribute the resurgence to an increase in global travel and the prohibition of potent pesticides like DDT.
New York convened a government advisory board last year to study the problem and make recommendations.
The report said one major roadblock to stopping the bedbug spread is lack of knowledge about prevention and the patchy and sometimes erroneous information about treatment.
“If you have termites, you know how to deal with it. If you see a rat, you know who to call. This is confusing,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “The biggest issue is lack of clarity and not having any actual sense of what the next step is and where you go to get that.”
Carol Gittens said she discovered bedbugs in her Brooklyn apartment two years ago, and estimates she has spent at least $3,000 replacing her things.
“We had to throw everything out — mattresses, clothes,” she said.
The apartment was thoroughly cleaned and she thought she had eliminated them. But a neighbor recently reported she has bedbugs, and Gittens said she might have them in her apartment again.
The high cost of throwing out infested belongings and hiring exterminators contributes to bedbugs’ spread, officials said. Many people, particularly those with low incomes or in public housing, cannot afford to do what it takes.
Acting on the report’s recommendations, New York City said Wednesday it was re-appropriating $500,000 of health department money to begin the first phase of a bedbug battle plan, which is mostly concentrated on information, outreach and the creation of an entomologist-led bedbug team.
Some of the money will go toward creating an online bedbug portal where New Yorkers can find information about avoiding the pests as well as how to treat their homes. The city already has a rat-information portal.
Many people are unaware they have the bugs, officials said, and end up spreading them by carrying them on their clothing or discarding personal items that have the bugs.
Travelers also need to be more vigilant, the city says.
“Everyone has got to get used to the idea that they have got to check for them periodically,” Kass said. “People who travel should look at the rooms they’re staying in. They should check their clothing. There are good preventive measures.”
Experts recommend looking for bugs with a bright flashlight, and using a hot hair dryer to flush them out of hiding places and cracks.
Bedding, linens, curtains, rugs and clothes from infested homes must be washed in hot water. Mattresses, furniture and floors must be vacuumed, and vacuum bags should be immediately disposed in sealed plastic bags. Hiring a certified exterminator to apply pesticides is also recommended.
Officials also said the city would adopt the report’s recommendation of working to establish protocol for disposing of infested furniture and other personal items.
The report also suggested more work should be done by agencies that serve lower-income New Yorkers, and public housing infestations should be addressed more quickly. But at a time when the city is cutting services and shrinking its job force to save money, those goals are likely not immediately achievable.
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Jury begins weighing Blagojevich corruption case
CHICAGO (AP) — Rod Blagojevich’s fate was in the hands of jurors Wednesday as they began deciding whether the impeached Illinois governor tried to sell an appointment to President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat and schemed to use his political power for personal gain.
Jurors, weighing evidence against the second Illinois governor in a row to be charged with corruption, received lengthy instructions from the judge on how their deliberations should be conducted. Prosecutors loaded two carts of exhibits they introduced at the trial that a marshal would wheel into the jury room.
“I’m not expecting” a speedy verdict, Judge James B. Zagel said before jurors entered the courtroom.
After jurors left to begin their work, Blagojevich appeared relaxed. He cupped his hand over his mouth and said to someone in the spectator’s section, “Say a prayer.” One elderly spectator walked over and hugged him, also handing him a piece of candy.
He and his co-defendant brother, Robert Blagojevich, have rarely been seen speaking to each other during the trial. But they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Zagel to say they both wanted to be exempt from having to come to court each time jurors have a question for the judge. The judge granted it.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Blagojevich as a greedy, smart political schemer determined to use his power to enrich himself throughout his administration, and who saw the opportunity to appoint Obama’s successor as the chance of a lifetime to get a lucrative and well-paying job in the administration.
By contrast, Blagojevich’s own attorney characterized him as an insecure bumbler who talked too much and had terrible judgment about who to trust — but never did anything to enrich himself.
In more than an hour of dry legal language, and without any of the passion that the attorneys displayed in their closing arguments, Zagel not only explained the charges to the jury and what factors they were to consider but laid out the hurdles they must overcome to reach a verdict.
For example, an instruction that the jury was allowed to make “reasonable inferences” sounded mundane. But it also is the crux of prosecutors’ argument that, even if Blagojevich didn’t come right out and ask for money in exchange for signing a bill or approving state aid, they could conclude that was exactly what he was doing.
Zagel also explained that it is not illegal to accept a campaign contribution even if the contributor is doing business with the state or believes that a contribution will help business in the future — something that Blagojevich’s attorneys have been saying throughout the trial.
But, he said, a person can be guilty of extortion if he or she believes that not coughing up a contribution will hurt business in the future. Prosecutors contend that one witness, a children’s hospital executive, had feared if he didn’t make a $25,000 campaign contribution to Blagojevich the hospital would suffer financially.
Zagel told jurors they were not to draw any conclusions from the fact that Blagojevich did not take the witness stand. Defendants have a right to testify and they have a right not to testify, he said simply.
After a trial that relied heavily on wiretapped conversations between Blagojevich and his brother, wife and advisers, Zagel warned jurors that their personal feelings about wiretaps were not to enter the deliberations. He said the FBI acted legally in taping the calls.
The judge also reminded jurors that some prosecution witnesses received immunity in exchange for their testimony, and that their comments can be considered, but “with great care.” Similarly, he said other witnesses against Blagojevich pleaded guilty to charges and got benefits from the government, including reduced sentences. Zagel said jurors could consider their testimony but, again, “with caution and care.”
Zagel also told jurors not to guess about how a person would be punished, that it was the judge’s job to sentence a defendant.
Blagojevich, walking past reporters earlier, noted there were fewer people watching his arrival. “Where is everybody?” he asked. During the trial, Blagojevich would sometimes plunge into the waiting crowds to shake hands and sign autographs.
The ousted governor, 53, has pleaded not guilty to 24 counts, including trying to sell or trade an appointment to Obama’s vacated Senate seat for a Cabinet post, private job or campaign cash. If convicted, he could face up to $6 million in fines and a sentence of 415 years in prison, though he is sure to get much less time under federal guidelines.
His brother, Nashville, Tenn., businessman Robert Blagojevich, 54, has also pleaded not guilty to taking part in that alleged scheme.
The former governor suggested that he might spend some of the time waiting for a verdict running. He told reporters as he was leaving the courtroom that he ran six miles on Tuesday evening.
—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected].