Conviction for war crimes

A 96-YEAR-OLD former Hungarian officer has been charged with involvement in the killing of about 1,000 civilians in Serbia during World War II, the Budapest Prosecutors’ Office said.

It said Sandor Kepiro, who returned to Budapest from Argentina in 1996, had been charged with war crimes committed in the 1942 execution of civilians in Novi Sad.

Kepiro has denied any wrongdoing. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which works to track down war criminals, has called for his prosecution for five years.

Hungary launched an investigation into the case in 2007 and the current charges are based on documents obtained from archives in Hungary and Serbia, the prosecutors’ office said.

Gabriella Skoda, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office, said it was unclear when the Budapest Court would start the trial. About a thousand civilians — Serbs, Jews and Roma — were killed in the 1942 massacre.

Kepiro has denied he committed or witnessed any crimes, saying his job was only to supervise gendarme patrols in a three-day raid against partisans in Novi Sad in 1942.