Extradition Controversy
In 1998, Poland requested that Morel be extradited for trial, but Israel refused. A reply sent to the Polish Justice Ministry from the Israeli government said that Israel would not extradite Mr. Morel as the statute of limitations had expired on war crimes.
In April 2004, Poland filed another extradition request against Morel, this time with fresh evidence, upgrading the case to "communist crimes against the population." The main charge against Salomon Morel was that, as commandant of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice, he created for the prisoners in this camp, out of ethnic and political considerations, conditions that jeopardised their lives, including starvation and torture. The charges against Morel were based primarily on the evidence of over 100 witnesses, including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp. In July 2005 this request was again formally refused by the Israeli government. The response rejected the more serious charges as being false, potentially part of an antisemitic conspiracy, and again rejected extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out, and that Morel was in poor health. Ewa Koj, a prosecutor with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, criticized the decision, but the Polish Foreign Ministry decided not to press the matter further. Morel died in Tel Aviv on February 14, 2007.
Read more about this topic: Salomon Morel
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)