Alleged Nazi War Criminal, 91, Faces Charges in Lithuania

Prosecutors filed charges of genocide Friday against alleged Nazi war criminal Aleksandras Lileikis, who fled Lithuania in 1944 and spent most of the past half a century in the United States.

Lileikis, who is 91 and in poor health, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1996 for concealing his wartime activities, and he returned to Lithuania.

He is accused of handing over scores of Jews to Nazi death squads when he was head of the Vilnius security police during the German occupation of Lithuania. Lileikis denies being a war criminal.

“Everything is going according to plan, and I handed the case to the Vilnius district court today,” said Kazimieras Kovarskas, head of the special investigations department at the general prosecutor’s office.

The trial, which is likely to be held four to six weeks from now, would be the first for Holocaust crimes in the Baltic states since the three small countries quit the former Soviet Union in 1991. The charges came amid pressure from Nazi-hunting organizations and the Israeli parliament.

The penalty for genocide is five to 15 years in prison, with confiscation of property, and in some cases a life sentence. But prosecutor Kovarskas said he doubts that a severe sentence would be imposed.

“He is sick, barely alive, and I doubt the court will give him a long punishment,” he said.

Lithuania had to change its penal code to allow the prosecution of individuals regardless of their state of health.

Lileikis had earlier escaped having charges brought against him when his lawyers and medical experts said he was too ill.

During World War II, almost all of Lithuania’s 220,000 prewar Jewish community was wiped out by Nazi forces, which sometimes worked with local Lithuanians.