Laszlo Csatary, a man linked to Nazi war crimes and suspected of personally handling the deportation of thousands of Jews to death camps, died in Hungary at age 98.
According to Hungary’s Politics.hu, the daily tabloid Bors first reproted the news, which was later confirmed by Csatary’s attorney, Gabor B. Horvath. Bors stated that Cstary had been hospitalized after he got pneumonia, which it cited as the cause of death.
The BBC notes that Csatary was on a list of the most wanted Nazi criminals. During World War II, he allegedly oversaw the deportation of 15,700 Jews to death camps. But Csatary denied the allegations, saying that he was just a link between German and Hungarian officials.
Csatary faced charges in both Hungary and Slovakia. In June, Hungarian prosecutors charged him with being a chief at the Kosice internment camp, which was the first one the Germans established when they occupied Hungary in 1944. They accused Csatary of beating prisoners with whips and his hands.
In 1948 in then-Czechoslovakia, Csatary was sentenced to death, but Hungary refused to extradite him to Slovakia because Hungary wanted him jailed for life. Hungary has abolished the death penalty and cited double jeopardy as a reason for not handing him over to Slovakia.
“It is a shame that Csatary, a convicted... and totally unrepentant Holocaust perpetrator who was finally indicted in his homeland for his crimes, ultimately eluded justice and punishment at the very last minute,” a spokesman for the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in response to his death. The center named Csatary as the most wanted Nazi suspect.