Nick Donovan: The War Criminal Next Door
[Nick Donovan works at the Aegis Trust, which works internationally to build up legal cases against suspected war criminals.]
The film Marathon Man is one of the great paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, infamous for the scene in which the Nazi dentist played by Lawrence Olivier drills through Dustin Hoffman's teeth into his live nerve below, repeatedly asking "Is it safe?" This is the stuff of Hollywood horror films, but another scene is more plausible: Olivier -- whose character is loosely based on S.S. doctor Josef Mengele -- ventures into New York's diamond district, where he is recognized by Holocaust survivors. One elderly woman, slowly at first and then with increasing hysteria, begins shouting at passers-by to stop him before he escapes.
Like the woman in the film, many victims of modern-day atrocities have sought asylum in North America or Europe -- and so have their persecutors. More than once, the Marathon Man scene has played out in reality. Ethiopian refugee Edgegayehu Taye was working as a waitress at the Colony Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, when she saw her former torturer, a man who had supervised while she was whipped with a plastic cable, standing by the elevator in a gray bellhop's uniform. Eugenio de Sosa Chabau was tortured 14 times by a man named El Enfermero, "The Nurse," for his opposition to Castro's rule in Cuba. After 21 years of imprisonment, de Sosa finally managed to flee to Florida. Visiting his elderly aunt at a nursing home in Miami, he was startled to see El Enfermero there -- now wearing the white uniform of a real nurse.
Today, authorities estimate that there are at least 1,000 war crimes suspects in the United States, and the real number is probably much higher. British immigration officials have taken action against 513 suspects in the last four years. Just like refugees, oppressors often flee at the end of conflict. Disguised, flying under the immigration radar, they enter North America and Europe....
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
The film Marathon Man is one of the great paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, infamous for the scene in which the Nazi dentist played by Lawrence Olivier drills through Dustin Hoffman's teeth into his live nerve below, repeatedly asking "Is it safe?" This is the stuff of Hollywood horror films, but another scene is more plausible: Olivier -- whose character is loosely based on S.S. doctor Josef Mengele -- ventures into New York's diamond district, where he is recognized by Holocaust survivors. One elderly woman, slowly at first and then with increasing hysteria, begins shouting at passers-by to stop him before he escapes.
Like the woman in the film, many victims of modern-day atrocities have sought asylum in North America or Europe -- and so have their persecutors. More than once, the Marathon Man scene has played out in reality. Ethiopian refugee Edgegayehu Taye was working as a waitress at the Colony Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, when she saw her former torturer, a man who had supervised while she was whipped with a plastic cable, standing by the elevator in a gray bellhop's uniform. Eugenio de Sosa Chabau was tortured 14 times by a man named El Enfermero, "The Nurse," for his opposition to Castro's rule in Cuba. After 21 years of imprisonment, de Sosa finally managed to flee to Florida. Visiting his elderly aunt at a nursing home in Miami, he was startled to see El Enfermero there -- now wearing the white uniform of a real nurse.
Today, authorities estimate that there are at least 1,000 war crimes suspects in the United States, and the real number is probably much higher. British immigration officials have taken action against 513 suspects in the last four years. Just like refugees, oppressors often flee at the end of conflict. Disguised, flying under the immigration radar, they enter North America and Europe....