A look at Canada's war crimes unit (05/10/98)

A look at Canada's war crimes unit

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

OTTAWA - During the April 28 hearings into the hiring of former OSI Director Neal Sher as an advisor to the Canadian Justice Department's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section (WCS), Assistant Deputy Attorney General John Sims provided some information about the operations of this judicial unit.

Mr. Sims reported that the WCS has "exceeded its target" of bringing 12 cases to trial by 1997 set by former Justice Minister Allan Rock, and said another five cases would be before the courts by December. Prodded by Progressive Conservative Justice Critic Peter MacKay, he offered that for every case brought to trial, two were being developed and that his department would be issuing the first of a series of annual reports some time this spring.

Under further questioning from Mr. MacKay, Mr. Sims said that Canada's policy with regard to the prosecution of war criminals and those who committed crimes against humanity is broad and not restricted to acts committed during World War II or any other conflict.

Mr. Sims said the WCS's mandate applied to points everywhere around the globe, regardless of time period. He said that, working in conjunction with Canada's Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, the WCS has contributed to the denaturalization and deportation of approximately 90 individuals, some to Africa and Central America.

Mr. Sims said the WCS adds "approximately four cases a year" to its dossier, and that currently four cases are "in advanced preparation, while another eight are in the early stages of preparation."

Mr. Sims suggested that "an old case, not a Nazi case, is being pursued and over the course of this year it will be brought as a denaturalization and deportation case."

In a related story, on March 27, a report was filed clearing the WCS of allegations of anti-Semitism leveled at it by an independent researcher. In April 1997 York University Law Prof. John McCamus was asked to conduct an investigation into the conduct of a former director of the WCS, William Kremer.

Mr. Kremer was alleged to have told Arnold Fradkin in 1990 that Mr. Fradkin lacked objectivity "because he is Jewish." In his report, filed on March 27, Prof. McCamus wrote that Mr. Kremer merely told Mr. Fradkin that the researcher's work "on a case known as the R file lacked objectivity in the sense that he was too close to the case and did not give detached and objective advice with respect to the difficulties presented."

Prof. McCamus also found "no factual foundation" to accusations that other managers or staff of the WCS "were motivated by anti-Semitic attitudes or beliefs."