Argentina Links Ex-Nazi Case, Thatcher

Argentina said Monday that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher should be extradited for the 1982 sinking of one of its warships in the same way a former Nazi SS officer is being extradited from Argentina.

“If the extradition of former SS officer Erich Priebke is being requested on the grounds that the Jewish Holocaust was a war crime, so was the sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano, and in that case Argentina should request the extradition of former British Prime Minister Thatcher,” the independent NA news agency quoted President Carlos Saul Menem as telling a news conference.

The sinking of the Argentine cruiser during the 10-week Falklands War claimed 323 lives among its crew of 1,093. About 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

Menem was speaking in the mountain resort of Bariloche, 1,000 miles south of Buenos Aires, where police last week arrested Priebke after he admitted taking part in the Ardeatine Caves massacre in Italy during World War II.

Priebke, 81, who like many Nazis found a haven in Argentina after the war, had been living for decades in Bariloche, a town with a large German community.

Argentina is still awaiting the official extradition request from Italy for Priebke for his part in Italy’s worst World War II atrocity.

Argentina and Britain have resumed full diplomatic relations since the 1982 war. Menem, his country’s second elected president since the return to democracy in 1983, had recently been seeking an official invitation for a state visit to Britain.