FED: Nazi safe haven claim is offensive Vanstone

AAP General News (Australia)
12-06-1999
FED: Nazi safe haven claim is offensive Vanstone

CANBERRA, Dec 6 AAP - A US current affairs program's accusation that Australia is a
safe haven for Nazi war criminals was unreasonable and offensive, the federal government
said today.

"I certainly do find that offensive," Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone said on ABC
radio of the program, broadcast in the US at the weekend.

"On a bipartisan basis, I can say that no government in Australia has, while I've been
in parliament, taken that attitude."

The 20-20 program quoted the former head of the government's special nazi war criminals
investigations unit, Mr Robert Greenwood, and international war crime investigators, accusing
successive Australian governments of lacking the political will to prosecute war criminals.

Mr Greenwood told the program that there were 27 worthwhile investigations on file
when his unit was shut down by the Labor government in the early 1990s.

Senator Vanstone said she would ask the Australian Federal Police for an opinion about
the merits of the investigations on file.

Of three prosecutions proposed by the unit, none resulted in a conviction.

"Australia poured tens of millions of dollars into that unit and to the consequent
trials, and I don't see with that having happened that it is an at all reasonable claim
to say that we're a safe haven," she said.

"We've always said, and Labor said when they were in power, that if information came
to hand that made it likely that investigations could proceed to a prosecution, that we
would not shut the files on that - and that remains the case.

"Nobody in Australia wants war criminals to sleep here comfortable, but equally no
one wants the Australian government to engage in show trials."

AAP rmg/pjs/br

KEYWORD: NAZI VANSTONE

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