OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to intervene to halt the extradition of a Vancouver man convicted abroad of Nazi war crimes.
Michael Seifert has spent years fighting efforts by Ottawa to send him to Italy, where he faces a life sentence for beating, torturing, starving and murdering inmates at the Bolzano prison camp during the Second World War.
The 83-year-old Seifert, who has lived in Canada since 1951, denies he committed the offences, but an Italian court found him guilty after trying him in absentia in 2000.
A British Columbia judge later ordered him extradited, and the provincial court of appeal confirmed that ruling last year.
Seifert then sought permission to carry his case to the Supreme Court, but in a decision released without comment Thursday a three-judge panel turned down the request.
Doug Christie, the lawyer for Seifert, couldn't say immediately whether there were any other legal avenues available to his client to try to stave off extradition.
"I don't know at the moment, I'm thinking about it,'' said Christie.
But Bernie Farber, chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he believes Seifert has run out of options.
"It's time for Canada to move expeditiously and extradite him to Italy, where he will finally face justice,'' said Farber. "He has had a fair hearing in this country, through all levels of due process.''
Christie noted that a Federal Court judge, James O'Reilly, wrote in a ruling last November that he couldn't conclude, on the basis of the evidence he had heard, that Seifert was guilty of the specific acts of violence alleged against him.
O'Reilly did, however, conclude that Seifert had lied about his past when he immigrated to Canada and would never have ben admitted if he'd told the truth.
A final decision on whether to strip him of his Canadian citizenship is up to the federal cabinet -- although he would still be legally liable for extradition no matter what the decision in the separate citizenship case.
The criminal finding against Seifert in Italy has been upheld by that country's highest court.
Christie said his client didn't travel to Italy for the trial because "he didn't have the money, didn't speak the language and didn't know any lawyers in Italy.''
Witnesses at the trial testified that Seifert starved a 15-year-old prisoner to death, gouged out another person's eyes, beat prisoners before shooting them and tortured a woman before killing her and her daughter.
Seifert, who's from Ukraine, says he was sent to the camp as a prisoner himself. Other evidence indicated that, although he had been sentenced by a German military court for rape, he was assigned at the Bolzano camp to guard isolation cells.
Farber said there's no reason to doubt the conclusions of the Italian judicial system.
"It's based on western democratic jurisprudence and democratic values. It's not a kangaroo court.''
