Shorts: World

Russian Jews blast verdict for stabber

moscow (jta) | A leading Russian Jewish group has sharply criticized the verdict of a man found guilty of stabbing nine people in a Moscow synagogue because the court failed to call the attack a hate crime.

The Moscow City Court this week sentenced Alexander Koptsev, 21, to 13 years in prison for attempted murder in the Jan. 11 incident. The court cleared Koptsev of a second charge, inciting ethnic or religious hatred, effectively refusing to treat his crime as an act of anti-Semitism.

The verdict is more evidence of "how the judicial system in our country is not willing to fight against racial and religious intolerance," the Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement.




Convicted Nazi spared prison time

vilnius (ap) | An 85-year-old Lithuanian deported from Florida was convicted this week of helping Nazis murder Jews during World War II, but the judge said the man was too frail to serve prison time.

The Vilnius District Court said Algimantas Dailide helped round up Jews as part of the Nazi-backed Vilnius security police during World War II, when nearly 90 percent of Lithuania's Jewish population was killed.

"Once again Lithuania proved that it is totally incapable of punishing its own Nazi war criminals. This country is the safest haven in the world for a local Nazi war criminal," said Efraim Zuroff, head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel branch.




Anti-Semitism stays near record highs in Canada for 2005

toronto (ap) | A Jewish organization that monitors anti-Semitic activities in Canada recently said the number of incidents last year was the second highest total in the 23-year history of their audit.

B'nai Brith Canada said 829 anti-Semitic incidents were reported to their anti-hate hot line and offices in 2005. A record 857 were documented in 2004.

Out of the total 829 incidents, 531 were classified as harassment, 273 as vandalism and 25 as violence.




French curator convicted of theft

paris (jta) | A leading French curator was convicted of stealing a 13th-century Hebrew manuscript.

Michel Garel, former chief curator at the French National Library, was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined approximately $475,000 earlier this month.

At least two dozen other Hebrew manuscripts have disappeared from the collection, but Garel only was tried for one, the New York Times reported.