As a result of the Deschenes commission, the Criminal Code was amended in mid-1987 to allow the trial of suspected Nazi war criminals living in Canada. In December of 1987, charges were laid against Imre Finta. (See also Finta Case.) Finta was the first Canadian to ever be prosecuted for war crimes under the new amended Criminal Code. He was accused of forcibly confining over 8,600 Jews in a brick factory located in Szeged, Hungary, in 1944, from which they would then be sent to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Stasshof. Finta was ultimately found not guilty, and no further war crimes trials of Nazis or Nazi collaborators were ever held in Canada afterwards.

The jury was stacked and his involvement in the Holocaust clear: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/download/29656/1882524838/1882525145

Finta was accused of being in charge of bringing Jews from the ghettoes to the concentration centre in Szeged. He was allegedly in charge of the concentration centre and his responsibilities supposedly included making sure that the Jews were kept in the brickyard and could not escape. He also took charge of taking valuables from them and his trial counsel admitted that Finta made daily announcements demanding that the prisoners relinquish all valuables on pain of death. Finally, he allegedly supervised the loading of the prisoners onto boxcars which took the Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz or to forced labour in Strasshof.

The evidence against Finta is overwhelming and unanswered. Finta presented no evidence to answer the charges brought against him, either at his libel trials or at his criminal prosecution. When asked at his criminal trial if he wanted to call evidence on his own behalf, he declined. Yet, Finta was acquitted. How is it possible that Finta could win his case when he called no evidence on his own behalf and the evidence against him was overwhelming? The answer is that there was a stacked jury and an appeal to racial prejudice.

“Both the appeal and the cross-appeal were dismissed by the Court by a narrow margin of 4:3.”

The Crown’s case depended in large measure on the testimony of 19 witnesses who had been interned at Szeged and deported to the concentration camps. The evidence of these survivors fell into four general groups. Six witnesses who knew respondent before the events in issue testified as to things said and done by him at the brickyard and at the train station. A second group consisting of three witnesses who did not know respondent beforehand identified him as having said or done certain things at the brickyard and at the station. A third group consisting of three witnesses who did not know respondent beforehand also testified as to things said and done at the brickyard and at the station. However, this last group based their identification of respondent on statements made to them by others. The fourth group, consisting of eight witnesses who did not know respondent beforehand and did not identify him, gave evidence as to events at the brickyard and the train station. In addition to the evidence of the survivors, the Crown relied on photographs, handwriting and fingerprint evidence to identify respondent as a captain in the Gendarmerie at Szeged at the relevant time. Expert and documentary evidence was tendered to establish the historical context of the evidence, the relevant command structure in place in Hungary in 1944 and the state of international law in 1944.

and

Douglas Christie made the purport of these remarks quite dear later in the trial. He asked, “It is very difficult for a Jewish person to be unbiased about the subject of the Holocaust?” and “You [Randolph] advance the Jewish understanding of history?”36 This Holocaust denial-oriented questioning of Braham was prolonged and elaborate. Christie’s questioning of the witness Wolfgang Scheffler was similar. In one exchange, Christie tied together his themes of Holocaust denial and Jews as greedy people.

He suggested that Jews deny the Holocaust in order to make money through reparations. Douglas Christie asked, “Dr. Scheffler, the Holocaust is big business, isn’t it?”37 The Crown objected and Christie replied, “It is my intention to suggest that there is a motive on the part of many people who are Zionists to exaggerate these things [the Holocaust] to inflate their claims [for reparations].” The ruling of the judge was to “go ahead.”