HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  CRIMES
Stephen Bindman   Vancouver Sun   23-Feb-1998   Bogutin may lose citizenship
The following article brings several questions to mind:

  1. The degree of coercion applied to Bogutin to join an auxiliary police force may have been enormous, especially if Bogutin was half Jewish.  Is being a member of an auxiliary police force a war crime, and should degree of coercion be taken into account in assessing culpability?  Furthermore, once Bogutin was a member of the auxiliary police, for him to resign, or to refuse to assist in any round-ups, might at best have left him hungry, and might at worst have gotten him executed by the Germans.  Perhaps fate had not handed Bogutin a situation in which choice was possible, but rather turned him into a prisoner only one level above the prisoners that he was rounding up.

  2. Bogutin is not implicated in killings or beatings, but only in roundups.  In fact, the most egregious thing that members of his police unit are accused of is beatings, not killings.

  3. Is it a war crime or a crime against humanity for a police officer to arrest someone, or to round people up, upon being ordered to do so?  What about shooting a prisoner upon being ordered to do so?  If you consult my Simon Wiesenthal Letter 24, you will see that American military police tied three Germans to stakes and shot them upon being ordered to do so.

    Were the American military police wrong to obey this order?  Are we to suppose that the American military police who carried out that shooting were shown the evidence against the three German prisoners, and were given a copy of the decision ordering the shooting, and were asked to read this decision at their leisure and weigh for themselves whether they agreed that these three Germans deserved to be shot; or is it more likely that the Americans were simply told to kill these German spies, and simply did kill them without asking any questions?  If it is blameless for people in American uniform to kill prisoners upon command, then why is it deserving of severe punishment more than half a century later for individuals in Ukrainian uniform to round up people for transport to Germany upon command?

  4. Bogutin is 88 years old.  From a CBC interview that I saw last summer, he is either a dying man, or a gifted actor impersonating a dying man.  I am surprised that he survived into 1998, think it possible that he will not survive denaturalization, and think it probable that he will not survive deportation.

  5. In view of the prevalence of horrific war crimes during World War II, and in view of the prevalence of horrific war crimes in the state of Israel today, it might be fair to typify the Bogutin prosecution not as one motivated by punishment for war crimes, but as one motivated by harrassment for war misdemeanors.  It might be fair to level again the accusation that Canada's war crimes unit has been diverted by political considerations from prosecuting for war crimes men who are in their prime to harrassing for war misdemeanors men with one foot in the grave.

  6. In my layman's view of the Bogutin case, and based on a knowledge of the case no deeper than what can be gathered from the article below, it seems to me that there is one, and only one, principle being violated in the Bogutin prosecution, and thus, one, and only one, defense that Bogutin can mount.  That defense is one of inequality before the law.  Ukrainians are being prosecuted for small war crimes and crimes against humanity.  No, one must put it more strongly than that � Ukrainians are being prosecuted for mere association with individuals who might be guilty of small war crimes or crimes against humanity.  Jews, in contrast, are not being prosecuted for large war crimes and crimes against humanity, and neither are Japanese and other groups.  This is in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  I would go so far as to question whether a defense which does not feature equality before the law as its cornerstone can be a competent defense.

Equality Rights
EQUALITY BEFORE AND UNDER LAW AND EQUAL PROTECTION AND BENEFIT OF LAW / Affirmative action programs.

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

...  The ideal embodied in the section is that a law expressed to bind all should not, because of irrelevant personal differences, have a more burdensome or less beneficial impact on one than another.  ...  Discrimination exists where a distinction, whether intentional or not but based on grounds relating to personal characteristics of the individual or group, has the effect of imposing burdens, obligations or disadvantages not imposed upon others....  ...  Equality before the law at a minimum requires that no individual or group of individuals be treated more harshly than another under the law.  ...  Discrimination is a distinction based on grounds relating to personal characteristics of the individual or group which has the effect of imposing burdens, obligations or disadvantages on such individual or group not imposed on others.

Suspected Nazi Collaborator to lose citizenship, judge decides

Vancouver Sun
23 Feb 1998

By Stephen Bindman
Southam Newspapers


 OTTAWA � For only the second time since the end of the Second World War, a judge has ruled a suspected Nazi collaborator can be stripped of his Canadian citizenship.

Justice William McKeown of Federal Court has concluded that 88-year old Wasily (Wasil) Bogutin of Toronto became a citizen in 1959 "by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances."

Bogutin hid his membership in the volunteer Ukrainian auxillary police during Nazi occupation and hid his participation in the roundup of people for forced labour in Germany, the judge ruled late last week.

"I find that he concealed that he was a collaborator during the Nazi occupation," McKeown wrote in a 62-page judgement.

"While Mr. Bogutin may have aided certain friends and relatives, he was personally and directly involved in effecting the roundups of young persons for forced labour in Germany.

"Several witnesses testified as to seeing beatings, arrests and round ups by the auxillary police."

The ruling clears the way for the federal cabinet to pass a special order revoking Bogutin's citizenship.  He would then face a deportation hearing.

The judgment is significant because it's the first Nazi war-crimes case to go to trial in more than five years.  Since 1995, Ottawa has started court proceedings to strip 14 suspected collaborators of their citizenship as a first step to deportation.

Three of the men have died, one voluntarily left the country without contesting the federal allegations and another has dropped his court fight and is expected to shorly lose his citizenship.

Bogutin, whose father was Jewish, claimed he worked as a civilian in the police warehouse and courier in his native village of Selidovo and denied participating in executions and in roundups.  He claimed his mother, an ethnic Ukrainian, got him a job with the police to save him from persecution because of his father's religion.
HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  CRIMES