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Charles Zentai

CHARLES (Karoly) Zentai, the Perth man facing charges for a Holocaust-era murder, inched closer to being extradited after losing an appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court on Thursday.

Zentai, 88, is out on bail, and may still appeal his case to the High Court, after the Federal Court granted a stay of 14 days on the execution of a warrant for  his extradition.

If Zentai appeals and loses he will face charges in Budapest.

He has always denied the charges relating to the murder of Peter Balazs, a young man who was beaten and then thrown into the Danube River in Budapest in 1944.

Two other officers in the Hungarian army were convicted of their complicity in Balazs’ murder in court proceedings soon after World War II.

Since his arrest in 2005 after investigations under the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s worldwide Operation Last Chance, Zentai’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued that the Perth Magistrate’s Court had no jurisdiction to rule on extraditing him. Read the full story

BORN in Györ, Hungary, in 1912 of Polish parents, Albert Scheinberg was a man of prescient vision, few words and great modesty. Albert loved his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and was proud of his ever-increasing large family, which now totals 64 and spans five generations. The entire family met annually for his birthday, eventually needing a tennis court to stage the family photograph.

Albert was the second of five children, two of whom -– Esther and Leo -– died of the Spanish flu. His brother Dezsö drowned due to an anti-Semitic attack. Finding himself stateless in 1937, Albert decided that Europe was set on a path of bloodshed at the hands of the Nazis and left at the first opportunity for Australia, which was as far away from Europe as possible. Read the full story