166 new Nazi investigations last year

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JERUSALEM, April 21 (UPI) -- An annual report issued by the Israeli Simon Wiesenthal Center indicates last year saw 166 new investigations of Nazi war criminals and six convictions.

The report praised the success of the United States in investigating and prosecuting former Nazis and singled out Romania as the country that has done the least to bring former Nazis to justice.

The Wiesenthal Center report, which tracks war crimes statistics from April 1, 2003, to March 31, 2004, shows Austria in leading the new investigations with 60, followed by the United States with 40, Latvia with 19, Italy and Lithuania each with 18 and Germany with nine.

The United States convicted the most Nazi war criminals, six, followed by Germany, which convicted one.

Wiesenthal Center director Efraim Zuroff said of the report's results: "Despite the somewhat prevalent assumption that it is too late to bring Nazi murderers to justice, the figures clearly prove otherwise, and it is clear that numerous cases of such criminals will continue to come to trial during the coming years."