TRIAL AS MURDERERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25800, 22 March 1945, Page 6

TRIAL AS MURDERERS

MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS FULL RETRIBUTION PROMISED RUGBY, Mar. 20. The three-Power decision at the Moscow Conference regarding the trial of war criminals was reaffirmed on behalf of Britain by the Lord Chancellor to-day, when the trial and punishment of war criminals were discussed in the House of Lords. Lord Addison asked the Government what progress was being made by the War Crimes Commission and the nature of the proceedings to secure the punishment of such major criminals as Hitler and Mussolini. Viscount Maugham said the criminals within any definition of war crimes ran into, not hundreds or thousands, but millions. The vast number of atrocities included a third of the Germans in this war. Viscount Cecil said that if the major war criminals were put on trial for political offences it would give them an opportunity for using the trials as a platform, from which they could preach their seditious doctrines. He hoped that they would be tried for crimes, not political offences. Lord Wright, chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, said that it was necessary for the commission to work in secrecy because of the reprisals the Germans might carry out. The commission had compiled lists of war criminals which were sent to the military forces, through the Government, and the army received the lists as warrants to apprehend the persons named in them. The commission was not a vindictive body. The major criminals would not be tried as political offenders, but as murderers, assassins, torturers, and the like. Lord. Simon, replying, said the Government had given the closest consideration, not merely to the major criminals, but to the small criminals. The real offence which the whole free world knew had been committed, by the major criminals was not limited by the war period. The question of procedure for dealing with the major war criminals would be one of the matters Mr Eden would discuss at an early date. He added: “I regard this question of dealing with war criminals as something very much more than mere retaliation upon our enemies. If such things as have been done can •be done in the face of heaven, and if humanity is not capable of effectively dealing with them and exposing and punishing them, indeed it would seem as if humanity were doomed.”