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Reg. $13.99 Now $10.99 With This Ad , Expires 6-2-89 Orchard Lake Road North of Maple West Bloomfield Toronto (JTA) — Last Friday's acquittal of Imre Finta, the first accused Nazi war criminal to be tried in Canada, was received with deep disappointment by Jewish groups convinced by eyewitness testimony of his guilt. But their concern was less over the fate of the 77-year- old Hungarian-born Finta than with the possible future reluctance of the Canadian government to press charges against other accused Nazis or Nazi collaborators under Canada's 3-year-old war crimes legislation. The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, for example, urged the Canadian authorities to reaffirm their commitment to pursue all other cases in- volving Nazi war criminals residing in Canada. A jury of eight women and four men in Ontario Supreme Court found Finta not guilty on all eight counts brought against him, after deliberating only one day. The trial had lasted more than six months. Finta, a captain in the pro- Nazi Royal Hungarian Gen- darmerie during World War II, was charged with kid- napping, manslaughter and robbery. Prosecuting attorney Christopher Amerasinghe told reporters that although he was disappointed with the verdict, the trial estab- lished that the 1987 legisla- tion was constitutional. The verdict can be appeal- ed, but that would be up to Canada's attorney general, Kim Campbell. Under Canadian law, an appeal can be considered only if flaws or errors are found in the trial proceedings. The kidnapping charged against Finta stemmed from his alleged forcible confine- ment of 8,617 Jews, mostly women and children, to an unused brickyard in Szeged, Hungary, in June 1944, prior to loading them into boxcars for deportation to the Auschwitz and Strasshof concentration camps. Hundreds died on the journey from overcrowding, malnutrition and lack of sanitary facilities. Auschwitz was located in Poland; Strasshof in Austria. All able-bodied Jewish men had been sent earlier to forced labor camps. Those rounded up as alleg- ed threats to national securi- ty included thousands of young mothers with their young children and the el- derly. They were first con- fined to ghettos and then marched to the brickyard, where they were forced to sleep on straw- covered ground and to use open dit- ches as latrines. They were joined by the ill from hospitals and scream- ing mental patients. All the deportees were forced into boxcars, where two buckets4served as toilets for 60 to 80 people during the three- to-five-day journey. Judge Archie Campbell, who presided at the trial, told the jury it had to deter- mine that Finta knew the acts he committed were in- humane in order to find him guilty of any of the four counts of crimes against humanity. Campbell also advised the jury that the case rested on the identification of Finta by witnesses at the brickyard. He advised them it would be "dangerous to convict" Fin- ta on the manslaughter charge, because there was no evidence of the causes of the deaths. Survivors from Hungary, West Germany, the United States, Australia and Israel, some of whom traveled to Toronto to testify, identified Finta as the officer who helped confine Jews to the brickyard and stripped them of their belongings. But as Amerasinghe pointed out afterward, "The 45 years (since the events) played a great part in the evidence." At present, cases are pen- ding against at least three alleged war criminals living in Canada. Finta, who was found guil- ty of war crimes in absentia by a Hungarian People's Court in 1948, became an ob- ject of sympathy for many as he sat alone in court. Out- side, he walked with a cane, which several observers maintained he did not really need. He did not take the stand. When the verdict was an- nounced, the former restaurateur from Hamilton, Ontario, wept and proclaim- ed that he always "loved" the Jewish people. He had made the remark several times before and had often had himself photographed with Jewish notables.