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Six years after conviction, Britain's Nazi war criminal dies in jail

Owen Bowcott

London: The only person convicted in a British court of Nazi war crimes has died in custody, six years after he was convicted of murdering 18 Jews during the German occupation of Belarus. Former policeman Anthony Sawoniuk (84), came to Britain after the Second World War and worked as a British Rail ticket collector. The trial in 1999 of Sawoniuk, who had settled in Bermondsey, south London, followed public pressure for those who had escaped justice to answer for their part in the Nazi genocide in eastern Europe. He denied all charges but witnesses from his hometown of Domachevo, Belarus, implicated him in a series of murders in 1942 when he was serving in a local police force. In the 1950s, Soviet intelligence routinely checked every letter sent from the west and Sawoniuk was identified from a letter he sent to his brother, Nickolai, who lived near Domachevo.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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