The Koziy case is revisited (02/18/96)

The Koziy case is revisited

by Marta Kolomayets
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The case of Bohdan Koziy, 73, an alleged Nazi war criminal who was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1984, is once again the subject of international attention.

This time, the director of the Wiesenthal Center's Israeli office, Efraim Zuroff, is seeking to secure his expulsion from Costa Rica, where Mr. Koziy has been living quietly for over 10 years. It is the second time in less than two years that Jewish organizations are demanding that Mr. Koziy be expelled from that Central American country; in 1994, the World Jewish Congress had initiated a "global campaign...to bring this man to justice for his heinous crimes."

This time, however, Ukraine's Secu-rity Service also is getting involved in the case, reported Reuters on February 9.

Ukrainian authorities will examine the case of Mr. Koziy, who was born and raised in the Ivano-Frankivske region of western Ukraine, and, who, in the twilight of his life, wants to clear his name of any wrongdoing.

"By the end of February, we - Mr. Koziy and I - are submitting a request to the Procurator General's Office in Kyiv that his case be reviewed, reconsidered, and that his name be cleared," said Askold Lozynskyj, Mr. Koziy's lawyer, who is based in New York.

"Mr. Koziy wants to be exonerated and he wants this case to be closed," said Mr. Lozynskyj. It is not the first time Mr. Lozynskyj has broached the subject with the Ukrainian government. He met with Pavlo Kushnir, a senior assistant to the procurator general of Ukraine, during his last visit in December 1995.

Indeed, despite the fact that Mr. Koziy was never found guilty of any crimes in Ukraine, or the Soviet Union, Anatoliy Sakhno, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Service (formerly the KGB), told Reuters that criminal proceedings had already been launched three times against Mr. Koziy on charges of persecuting Jews and killing a 4-year-old girl in the village of Lysets, Ivano-Frankivske region.

"This man is accused of serious crimes, but it is up to a court to determine whether he is guilty. Ukraine is not seeking his extradition at the moment, but criminal actions have been launched three times, the first in 1975 and the last in 1987," Mr. Sakhno told Reuters by telephone last week. The Weekly could not reach the Security Service spokesman for comment.

Mr. Lozynskyj agreed that he did not think Ukraine would ask for Mr. Koziy's extradition, and for this reason, Mr. Zuroff, who met with the vice-president of Costa Rica last month, will ask that Costa Rica declare him an undesirable alien. According to international law, Mr. Koziy can be expelled only if another country requests his extradition. Costa Rica turned down an extradition request from the Soviet Union in 1986.

Declaring Mr. Koziy an undesirable alien also raises many questions. "Costa Rica declares Mr. Koziy an undesirable alien, and then what? He winds up somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic," said Mr. Lozynskyj.

Mr. Sakhno told Reuters that Mr. Koziy's case was never closed, but was suspended because Mr. Koziy was "so difficult to track down."

In the summer of 1994, the only surviving witness to Mr. Koziy's alleged crime - the fatal shooting of a little Jewish girl by the name of Monica Singer - recanted her testimony, bringing forth new revelations in the case.

Mr. Koziy, who was deported from the U.S. for concealing his wartime activities from immigration officials, contends that he has always admitted to sympathizing with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Hanna Snegur, 65, a Polish Catholic pensioner who has lived in Lysets her entire life, in 1994 admitted that she was told she "would see the polar bears in Siberia," if she did not testify during an interrogation by the KGB in 1976 that she saw Mr. Koziy, a young Ukrainian militiaman in German-occupied Lysets, carrying off a 4-year-old Jewish girl back in the autumn of 1943. The other three witnesses interviewed in the mid-1970s have since died.

But Mrs. Snegur's evidence was never brought before a court of law. Despite the new testimony, Mr. Kushnir of the General Procurator's Office sent a letter dated April 11, 1995, to members of the Rebirth Association in Kalush, a private organization that wants to prove Mr. Koziy's innocence of any Nazi collaboration. Mr. Kushnir contended in the letter that Mr. Koziy is wanted in Ukraine on such charges as betrayal of the homeland (collaboration with the Germans) and murder, listing the names of five people, including two girls, Rosiner and Singer, and three males, Kandler, Bredholz and Kalmus.

Mr. Kushnir noted, "Once Mr. Koziy crosses into Ukrainian territory, his fate will be decided in accordance with existing international codes."

Stefan Mykytiuk, president of the Rebirth Association, corresponds regularly with Mr. Koziy, who had originally appealed to this organization to help him return to Ukraine soon after the country declared independence in 1991.

"I received a letter from him just a few months ago; it seemed that he has lost hope in clearing his name. He had asked me to stop my efforts, saying that it seemed to him that they are a waste of manpower, time and money," said Mr. Mykytiuk on February 15.

"But with these new rumblings, we're ready to continue our fight to prove Mr. Koziy's innocence," he stated.

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