Poland wants to extradite suspected Nazi criminal from the US

Poland’s State Prosecutor's Office has requested the extradition of a 98-year old Michael K. (name withheld due to Polish privacy law) who, Poland believes, was a former commander of an SS unit, which took part in a mass killing in Polish village Chłaniów, where 44 civilians were murdered. The motion was sent to the Polish consulate in Washington two weeks ago. The consulate will submit it to the US Department of Justice on behalf of the National Institute of Remembrance (IPN), which is in charge of prosecuting crimes against the Polish state. Polish prosecutor Robert Janicki said back in May, that he was “100 percent” certain that the suspect is a former Nazi leader based on Nazi pay stub records, testimony from other unit members and K. own Ukrainian-language memoir in which he places himself at the site of at least one mass murder. K. family, who moved to the US in 1949, calls the accusations baseless. “These are lies, this is defamation, this is slander, it’s unsupported, it’s innuendo, it’s allegations,” Michael's son Andriy said. His family claims that Michael is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. If extradited and convicted, he could face life in prison.