1941-1945 WAR CRIMES IN BAČKA AND THE CASE OF SANDOR KEPIRO

Lopičić-Jančić Jelena Đ. (Advokat iz Beograda), jelena@vektor.net

The paper deals with the occupation of Bačka by the Hungarian Army in the period from 1941 to 1945 as well as with the mass war crimes committed by the Hungarian army, gendarmerie, the police and their collaborators who were members of the ethnic Hungarian and German minorities acting against the Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and other nonHungarian nationalities. The article is focused on 1942 Novi Sad raid that was carried out by the Hungarian army, gendarmerie, police, military counterespionage and the security authorities with the help of local collaborators from the Hungarian and German minorities. This was one of the most severe and biggest war crimes committed in Vojvodina. One of the persons that were directly responsible for the Novi Sad raid is Dr. Sandor Kepiro. He had been a Hungarian gendarmerie captain, a Hungarian citizen, who after World War II fled to Austria and then to Argentina. Kepiro returned freely from Argentina to Hungary in 1996. On the initiative of the “Simon Wiesenthal” Centre in Budapest, he was charged with the war crimes committed in the Novi Sad raid in 1942. The Republic of Serbia did not seek his extradition, but only provided documentation and evidence because it agreed that the Hungarian Constitution did not allow its nationals to be extradited. The Court acquitted him on 18 June 2011 and he died of natural causes on 3 September 2011 at the age of 98. The author is of the opinion that the Republic of Serbia should have sought the extradition of Dr. Sandor Kepiro on the basis of 1943 Moscow Declaration and the Agreement on Termination of the State of War with Hungary of 20 January 1945 and the Peace Treaty signed with Hungary on 10 February 1947 that are still valid and provide for the extradition of war criminals – because they have more legal power than the Constitution of Hungary.

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