Anton Gecas, 85; Accused of Executing Jews in Lithuania in WW II

Anton Gecas, wanted in Lithuania on charges of war crimes against Jews during World War II, died Wednesday in a Scottish hospital before he could be brought to trial.

The 85-year-old Gecas, who moved to Britain in 1947, had suffered two strokes. He died at Liberton Hospital in Edinburgh.

Lithuania asked Scotland in March to extradite the Lithuanian-born Gecas, who had been living in the Scottish capital.

Scottish authorities refused to arrest him a week ago, saying his poor health made it impossible to carry out the extradition request.

Lithuania accused him of taking part in executing Jews in the Baltic state and neighboring Belarus during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation as a lieutenant in the 12th Police Battalion.

Gecas denied the charges.

Efraim Zuroff, head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, said Wednesday that the failure to bring Gecas to trial was “a terrible travesty of justice and that the blame for this very sad result lies primarily on the British authorities, who for more than four decades did so little to bring him to justice.

“Men like Gecas who served as an officer in one of the worst murder squads of local Nazi collaborators in Eastern Europe do not deserve to die unprosecuted in their bed in Edinburgh,” he said.