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| Estonia : No talks with Israel on alleged war criminal
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Estonia has slammed as "untruthful" a report in the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post that the Israeli government has protested to Tallinn after a case was closed against an Estonian accused of murdering Jews in WWII.
"The Israeli government has not communicated anything to Estonia on the case of Harry Mannil," foreign ministry spokeswoman Ehtel Halliste told Agence France Presse.
"It is regrettable that the Jerusalem Post has published unverified and
untruthful information," she said.
The Jerusalem Post wrote Thursday that Israel has protested over a decision by Estonian prosecutors to close an investigation into Mannil, now 85 and living in Venezuela.
Mannil has been accused of murdering some 100 people, mostly Jews, between 1941 and 1942 when he worked in the Estonian and German security forces during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic state.
No evidence
But Estonian prosecutors said last week that a five-year probe had turned up no evidence to implicate Mannil in war crimes, and dropped their case against him.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the issue was raised by Israeli officials when they met with Marina Kaljurand, Estonia’s non-resident
ambassador to Israel, but the foreign ministry in Tallinn denied that Mannil’s case was broached during the meetings.
"Estonia’s ambassador to Israel did have meetings with Israeli officials
but this case was not raised," Halliste said.
The Simon Wiesenthal centre -- a Jewish organisation that tracks down Nazi war criminals -- earlier this week slammed Estonia’s judiciary as inept and corrupt after the case against Mannil was dropped.
"The Estonian investigation of Mannil is a pathetic whitewash for political reasons of an active Nazi collaborator who, thanks to the ineptitude or corruption of the Estonian prosecution, will apparently never be held
accountable for his crimes," the organisation said in a statement.
"Estonia lacks the political will to prosecute a prominent Estonian," it
added.
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