Thatcher Urged to Rescue Legislation on War Crimes

The British government came under fierce pressure Tuesday to rescue Nazi war crimes legislation thrown out by the House of Lords.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, facing angry lawmakers in the House of Commons, said she recognized “the extremely strong feelings because of the hideous nature of these crimes.”

However, she made no commitment to invoke a rarely used parliamentary act and force the bill through the unelected House of Lords, which consists of hereditary peers, judges, church leaders and politicians given lifetime titles. The bill, which would have allowed prosecution of elderly suspected war criminals living in Britain, was passed in the Commons in December. Thatcher voted in favor of the legislation.

The War Crimes Bill was supposed to become law in July, but the Lords voted 207-74 on Tuesday to defeat it.

“We will be considering very carefully . . . how best to proceed bearing in mind the size of the majority in this house on a free vote,” Thatcher told the lawmakers in Commons. “It may be that the house itself will wish to discuss the matter.”

The government’s options are to abandon the bill, have the House of Commons vote on whether to reintroduce it or simply reintroduce it in the fall. The government has not revived a bill voted down in the House of Lords since 1949.

It is rare for the Lords to vote against proposed legislation. Traditionally, it revises clauses in legislation but does not reject outright Commons’ bills.

The Lords’ powers are limited to delaying measures for a year, and they could not reject the bill a second time.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which submitted a list of Nazi suspects to the government in 1986, said it was “deeply upset” by the Lords’ vote.

“I think it is unthinkable that this country, which suffered so much at the hands of the Nazis, continues to give a haven to some of Hitler’s worst henchmen,” said Ephraim Zuroff, head of the Israeli section of the Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal Center.

Opponents of the bill in the House of Lords argued that it would be impossible to hold fair trials after 50 years and that prosecutions would amount to “show trials” of old men and stir up old hatreds.

The vote left Britain the only one of the World War II Allied powers without laws to prosecute suspected war criminals.