Canada Immigration Board Rejects Bid by Ex-Nazi to Conduct Deportation Hearing in Private

TORONTO (Sputnik) - Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) has dismissed former Nazi Helmut Oberlander’s bid to conduct the hearing in private, IRB spokesperson Anna Pape said on Tuesday.

At the start of the proceedings, the defence put forward a motion to conduct the deportation proceedings against the former death squad member in private, barring members of the media and public from observing the proceedings.

"This is to confirm that Counsel’s application to make private the proceedings in the matter of Mr. Oberlander has been dismissed. The earlier publication ban ordered today by [IRB] Member [Karen] Greenwood has been lifted", Pape said in a statement.

Oberlander, 96, has been embroiled in a legal battle with the Canadian government since 1995, when the authorities launched a procedure to strip the Ukrainian-born ex-SS member of his citizenship since he had failed to disclose his links to death squads.

In 2017, Oberlander was stripped of his citizenship for the fourth and final time, and later the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that he can't appeal the decision.

According to Russian investigators, the ex-Nazi, who served as interpreter for the Sonderkommando SS-10A death squad, was complicit in a World War II massacre of 27,000 civilians, including orphaned children, in the Rostov region.