Waldheim Says TV Mock Trial Proves He Was Slandered

Austrian President Kurt Waldheim today said a mock trial’s ruling that he was unlikely to have committed Nazi atrocities proved he has been the victim of a slander campaign.

Speaking to Austrian Radio during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Waldheim said the findings by five retired judges in the television broadcast would impress Western nations, which have largely shunned him since charges surfaced about his World War II activities.

“I’m happy that this investigatory commission, even though it is a purely private institution, unanimously recognized that there is . . . no case to answer,” Waldheim said.

In a joint American-British production broadcast Sunday on Thames Television and Home Box Office, the judges concluded the evidence they had heard was not enough to make it probable that the former U.N. secretary general had committed any war crimes.