RPT - Canada Postpones Decision On Ex-Nazi Deportation Case Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2020) A decision in the deportation case of former Nazi Helmut Oberlander is not expected in the coming days as Canadian authorities largely press pause on deportation cases amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is currently conducting detention reviews and some admissibility hearings for detainees only, as services remain impacted by the ongoing pandemic, a notice from the board states.

"These Immigration Division provisions do not apply to Mr. Oberlander's case as he is not detained," Immigration and Refugee Board spokesperson Anna Pape told Sputnik on Thursday. "A decision is not expected in the coming days."

In February, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) said that the former Schutzstaffel (SS) member's legal counsel requested that the case be dismissed over a lack of jurisdiction.

Should the case proceed, an admissibility hearing would be scheduled to determine whether the allegations against Oberlander are founded, only after which a deportation order could be issued.

On April 9, Russian investigators announced that the 96-year-old 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 Canadian authorities to provide legal materials related to the investigation into the former translator's role in the massacre of orphans in the Russian city of Yeysk during World War II.

Russia's Investigative Committee is trying to assess Oberlander's role in the crime against humanity, which the committee noted does not have a statute of limitations, in accordance with the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

The Canadian government began trying to strip Ukrainian-born Oberlander of his Canadian citizenship in 1995, citing the fact that he failed to disclose his links to the death squads. This led to a lengthy legal battle. The former Nazi 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 Oberlander to appeal this decision.