When I spoke to the head of Scotland Yard’s war crimes unit, Chief Supt Eddie Bathgate, shortly after he retired, he admitted: “Svikeris was a powerful case, and I would cheerfully have put him on the charge sheet. The interviews with him were videotaped and you could see he was guilty. One of my last remarks to the CPS was, ‘you are not going to be able NOT to prosecute Svikeris’.”
And the CPS said 'Challenge ACCEPTED!'.
But ultimately, the CPS did not believe they could establish his guilt in court beyond reasonable doubt.
And if it's not a sure thing, they won't bet...
And to make sure they don't have to, they rig the wheel!
In researching a book on this process, I and my co-author, Robert Sherwood discovered the CPS had insisted on a set of criteria that inevitably restricted the number of cases to reach court.
These included the insistence that a suspect had to have been in a command position – a criterion nowhere to be found in the War Crimes Act. To be considered a strong case, the victims had to have been Jews, notwithstanding the many thousands of non-Jews murdered by the police auxiliaries. And without credible eyewitnesses prepared to testify in open court that they had seen the defendant kill, after half a century, even the most compelling cases – like those of Gecas and Svikeris – failed to pass the threshold.
Isn't it about time the CPS was overhauled? Or scrapped, root and branch, and replaced by an organisation worth the name?
I was among the 60's students demanding the creation of of an independent prosecution service. The CPS is now corrupt and useless as Plod has ever been. (And with regard to the latter, note the 1000 currently suspended Met in pathetic attempts to 'clean out' the criminal malignancy.)
ReplyDeleteThe reason that we convicted so few is probably be ause the USA "paperclipped" most of them to head up their anti-soviet machine, aka NATO.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact I knew an old man from Latvia who joined the German forces when they marched through his country. As a young child he had witnessed his family being raped and killed by the Bolsheviks. Being young he was taken for reeducation but escaped laer to fight Russians. He boasted to me about killing many, both fighters and civilians. There is no doubt that he was a war criminal but here he was in England working on British Rail.
The reason that we convicted so few is probably be ause the USA "paperclipped" most of them to head up their anti-soviet machine, aka NATO.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact I knew an old man from Latvia who joined the German forces when they marched through his country. As a young child he had witnessed his family being raped and killed by the Bolsheviks. Being young he was taken for reeducation but escaped laer to fight Russians. He boasted to me about killing many, both fighters and civilians. There is no doubt that he was a war criminal but here he was in England working on British Rail.
"The CPS is now corrupt and useless as Plod has ever been."
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's the fate of all institutions after a certain size and age?
"The reason that we convicted so few is probably be ause the USA "paperclipped" most of them to head up their anti-soviet machine, aka NATO."
Ah, yes, indeed. Good point!
"There is no doubt that he was a war criminal but here he was in England working on British Rail."
Committing further atrocities?