Crimes Trial
Is Adjourned
Sydney, Australia (JTA) —
Australia's first war crimes
trial was adjourned last
week, when defendant Ivan
Polyukhovich complained of
dizziness and was
hospitalized.
It was not the first ad-
journment of the case of the
Ukrainian-born Polyuk-
hovich, who is the first
person to be tried under
a law enacted in Decem-
ber 1988 which allows
Australian courts to try per-
sons living here for war
crimes they allegedly com-
mitted on foreign soil.
He was formally charged
in January 1990, but the
trial was delayed because of
a court challenge to the war
crimes law and because of
Mr. Polyukhovich's health.
In July 1990, the accused
war criminal was found in
an Adelaide street with a
self-inflicted bullet wound to
the chest. Indeed, prospects
were never considered good
for bringing him to trial be-
cause of his suicidal tenden-
cies.
Mr. Polyukhovich, about
75 and a longtime resident of
Adelaide, South Australia,
finally went on trial there
Oct. 28, accused of the mass
murder of Jews in the
Ukrainian village of Serniki.
Inside the courtroom last
week, videos were shown of
the exhumation of the
graves of his alleged victims
and their skeletal remains.
Outside, a small demon-
stration protesting the trial
was staged by the anti-
Semitic Australian League
of Rights.
The demonstration gained
media attention when the
participants were joined by a
90-year-old former lieute-
nant governor of South
Australia, Sir Walter
Crocker, who told reporters
that the war crimes trials
were the immoral "con-
trivances" of a "financially
powerful lobby" which had
never had "Australian in-
terests" at heart.
While he did not identify
the alleged conspirators, he
told interviewers pointedly
that "his best friends in-
clude Jews."
Inside the court, police
witnesses testified that they
had examined the mass
graves and found that "most
of the bodies were women
and children" shot in the
head or bludgeoned by rifles.
More than 60 of the 553
skulls were identified as the
remains of girls under age
10.
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