Man, 77, on war charges

A 77-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday sent for trial on war crimes charges linked to the Second World War.

Retired railway worker Anthony Sawoniuk, from Bermondsey, south-east London, was committed at Bow Street magistrates' court to stand trial at the Old Bailey on four charges of murdering Jewish people in a town under German occupation in Byelorussia in 1942. Chief stipendiary magistrate Graham Parkinson renewed Sawoniuk's conditional bail and said there would be a plea and directions hearing at the Old Bailey on July 24.

Sawoniuk allegedly murdered two men and two women in Domachevo in circumstances constituting a violation of the laws and customs of war.

A fifth charge relating to another Jew has been discharged, the prosecution offering no evidence on it.