'Influential Defenders' Delay Revoking Of Ex-Nazi's Canadian Citizenship - Russian Embassy

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2020) The Russian Embassy in Canada told Sputnik that "influential defenders" are working to delay former Nazi Helmut Oberlander's citizenship revocation.

"Despite indisputable facts of the Nazi criminal's guilt, the proceedings... are clearly dragging out," the Embassy said. "It is obvious that the punisher's influential defenders seek to delay as much as possible the implementation of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling, trying to retain his 'Canadian residence permit' until he passes away."

Diplomats quoted Oberlander's lawyer who said that the case is "far from over" with the deportation process yet to begin.

The Canadian government began trying to strip Ukrainian-born Oberlander of his Canadian citizenship in 1995, citing that he failed to disclose his links to Nazi death squads during World War II.

After a lengthly legal battle, Oberlander was stripped of his citizenship for the fourth time in 2017 and Canada's Supreme Court issued a ruling last December that blocked any possibility for him to appeal the decision. Russian investigators say that the 96-year-old Oberlander was complicit in the World War II shooting of 27,000 people in Russia's Rostov region. Additionally, in February, Russia's Investigative Committee sent a request to the Canadian authorities to provide legal materials related to the investigation into Oberlander's role in the massacre of orphans in the Russian city of Yeysk during World War II.