CRIMES OF WAR

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22459, 21 September 1944, Page 6

CRIMES OF WAR

PUNISHING THE GUILTY WELLINGTON, Thursday. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, replied in the House of Representatives yesterday to a question as to what attitude the Government would take if a Court set up by the Allies imposed the death penalty on Nazi war criminals, seeing that in New Zealand capital punishment had been abolished by the present Government. Mr Fraser said the criminal code of New Zealand or any other country had no bearing on the question of punishment of war criminals. The Government would do everything possible to see that those responsible for the deaths of millions of people were properly and adequately punished.

Mr T. C. Webb (Opposition—Kaipara) said it would solve an awkward problem if the Russian or other forces took the law, or rather the situation, since there was no law, into their own hands.

Mr A. S. Richards (Government— Roskill) said he iHlcTnot see how the question could have beeyi answered better. Many of those who opposed punishment of the Kaiser after the last war were not Germans. Imperialism knew no flags or frontiers. Not Ordinary Murderers

When discussion was resumed in the evening the Prime Minister said there would be obvious confusion in the- classification of war criminals with ordinary murderers, because they were something infinitely worse than the worst murderer heard of.

When it came to people responsible for such a holocaust and directly responsible for the deaths of millions and the untold suffering of millions of others, he did not know even if a court of justice should be set up for them at all. With people like that, with their cumulative crimes so great, the quicker they were got rid of in the most expeditious way the better.