Ukrainian 'war criminal' faces deportation from US

An 80-year-old man is fighting attempts to deport him from the US over allegations he helped Nazis persecute Jews in Lithuania.

The Justice Department wants to deport Algimantas Dailide, asserting that he helped the Nazis persecute Jews 60 years ago but Dailide says he was just trying to track down Communists.

Prosecutors say Dailide was a clerk in the Lithuanian security police in Vilnius and that he interviewed Jews to decide whether they should be put to work or put to death.

He also arrested Jews and their children who attempted to escape ghettos and handed them over to German police, prosecutors said.

"His conduct was criminal and cruel," said Eli M Rosenbaum, leader of the Office of Special Investigations, the Justice Department's Nazi-hunting unit.

Dailide, however, said he never hurt any Jews but served on a police force that worked to keep Lithuania free of Communists after the German army took control of the country in 1941.

He said he fears being deported to Lithuania because it would mean that he and his 85-year-old wife, Ruth, will be apart for the first time in 56 years.

They met in a German village after he fled Lithuania.

He said she cannot travel because she has a heart condition and is showing the beginning signs of Alzheimer's disease.

Dailide said: "I just want to finish my days here. I don't feel that I did anything wrong. I didn't join the Nazis, and I didn't work for them. They weren't our friends. We were looking for Communists."