Gavel (illustration)
Gavel (illustration)iStock

A federal court in Canada has rejected a request by Helmut Oberlander, a 97-year old former Nazi death squad member to have his deportation proceedings permanently ended.

Oberlander’s lawyer had earlier in the year filed a motion to postpone a hearing that would have deported him from Canada.

“We are pleased to learn that Canada's Federal Court has rejected former Nazi death squad member Helmut Oberlander's request to permanently end his deportation proceedings. Oberlander must face justice once and for all, without delay,” Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a tweet.

Oberlander has lived in Canada since 1954. He has been fighting deportation for years for his role as an interpreter with a brutal Nazi death squad. His Nazi past was discovered in 1995.

Starting in 2000, Canadian courts have taken away Oberlander’s Canadian citizenship four times, focusing on his past membership in the Einsatzgruppen, which he failed to disclose to immigration authorities upon becoming a Canadian citizen in 1960.

When the motion to stay Oberlander’s deportation proceedings became public, the CBC reported that there was outrage in the Jewish community.

"Every time there is a delay… I feel that there is no justice for the people that were murdered in the Shoah," said Pinchas Gutter, a Holocaust survivor. “It hurts. It hurts inside. It breaks my heart … each time there is a delay."