BRAMA, May 28, 2007, 1:00 pm ET
Press release
Innocent Man Finally Cleared of Unfounded Allegations of a Nazi Past
Ottawa — The Ukrainian Canadian community has welcomed the Government of Canada's
announcement that Wasyl Odynsky will not be denaturalized and deported, despite
a decade of unfounded allegations about his wartime activities.
In a 2001 ruling, Federal Court Judge W Andrew MacKay reaffirmed that Mr Odynsky
had never been a Nazi and that there was no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing
on his part during the German occupation of Ukraine. Despite those findings Mr
Odynsky still faced the prospect of being denaturalized and deported because it
was alleged that he must have misled immigration screening officials when he
resettled in Canada after the war, concealing his role as a sentry at the
Trawniki labour camp. Mr Odynsky repeatedly swore that he was never asked about
his wartime service, had been press-ganged into an auxiliary guard unit, and was
never involved in a war crime. By all accounts he has lived an exemplary life in
Canada.
Commenting on the Canadian Cabinet's decision, Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, director of
research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said:
"Previous Liberal governments ignored our community's principled position on
dealing with the alleged presence of war criminals in Canada. We have always
insisted that any and all war criminals found in Canada, regardless of their
ethnic, religious or racial origin, or political beliefs, should be brought to
trial in a Canadian criminal court, where an individual's guilt must be proved
beyond a reasonable doubt. Thankfully, the new Conservative government of
Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has recognized
that the Odynsky case, like so many others, was built up on hearsay and
emotional rhetoric rather than any compelling evidence of wrongdoing. We
applaud this government for undoing the harm done by previous administrations
and now call upon the Minister of Justice, the Honourable R Nicholson, to
either forgo denaturalization and deportation proceedings altogether, which
would be sensible given how deeply flawed the process is, or else apply it to
any and all suspects, given that justice can not be selective. Taking the
latter course would mean initiating proceedings against those individuals now
living in Canada who have admitted that they voluntarily served in the Soviet
secret police, the NKVD, SMERSH and KGB, organs of state repression whose
undeniable record of atrocities is unrivaled in 20th century Europe. We are
sure all Canadians agree that our country should not be a safe haven for
Communist killers and enablers. Unfortunately, it still is."
For more about UCCLA go to www.uccla.ca
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