Extradition victory for Nazi war crime accused

An alleged Nazi war criminal living in Australia has won a battle against government attempts to extradite him to Hungary to stand trial for the murder of a Jewish teenager.

Charles Zentai, a retired nurse now aged 90, was accused by Hungarian authorities of beating to death a Jewish teenager, Peter Balazs, in Budapest in 1944.

Australia’s highest court yesterday ruled he could not be extradited to the country of his birth because the offence “war crime” did not exist in Hungarian law at the time of the alleged murder.

Zentai, who migrated to Australia in 1950 and became an Australian citizen, has maintained his innocence. He was a 23-year-old warrant officer in the pro-Nazi Hungarian military at the time of Balazs’ death but said he was not in Budapest when the attack took place.

Zentai was arrested in 2005 after Hungary requested his extradition. Australia ordered in 2009 that he be sent to Hungary, but the Federal Court overturned that ruling in 2011.