Zentai decision still hanging

THREE Federal Court judges have reserved their decision in an appeal hearing over whether Charles Zentai can be extradited to Hungary over war crimes.

Justices Anthony North, Christopher Jessup and Anthony Besanko last week heard an appeal by Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor against an earlier Federal Court judgement that his 2009 decision to allow Zentai to be extradited was flawed.

In July last year, Justice Neil McKerracher ruled the extradition decision was outside the government’s jurisdiction and that O’Connor had failed to consider that the alleged actions of the defendant were not a war crime under Hungarian law at the time.

The judge stated that the Commonwealth’s investigation of prison conditions in Hungary, availability of bail and provision of health care, had not been adequate.

Arguing against that judgement, Stephen Lloyd SC for the Commonwealth described Justice McKerracher’s ruling as “inaccurate” and said he had exceeded his authority.

Lloyd told the court the judge had also erred in stating that Zentai was wanted in Budapest solely for questioning, and that in fact he might also be required to stand trial.

The 89-year-old Perth resident is wanted by Hungarian authorities as part of an investigation into the 1944 murder of Peter Balazs, a Jewish teenager who was pulled off a Budapest tram, and transferred to an army barracks where he was beaten to death, after which his body was dumped in the Danube.

Zentai, who was located in Perth in 2004 through the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Operation Last Chance, was in the pro-Nazi Hungarian army.

But he has claimed he is innocent and that he had left the Hungarian capital a day before the killing
took place.

PETER KOHN