A Ukrainian pensioner living in Wimbledon faces investigation after new evidence from German Second World War records linked him to an SS division which conducted two massacres of Jewish civilians.

Julian Hendy, a TV producer and researcher into the Holocaust, said he had found Dr Swiatomyr Mychailo Fostun's name in documentation used in war crimes trials in America.

Mr Hendy said the academic's name appears on rosters for the Trawniki SS training camp, near Lublin, Poland, for April 17, 1943, when an SS unit of 335 guards and two officers was dispatched to put down the revolt of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto two days later.

Mr Hendy also claims Dr Fostun's name appears on a roster of 100 men for August 14, 1943. This unit was involved in the suppression of another uprising in a ghetto in Bialystok, near Lublin, two days later.

More than 60,000 people died as a result of both operations.

Dr Fostun, of Stroud Road, is head of the Association of Ukrainian Former Combatants.

Mr Hendy told the News: "During the war, the Germans ran extermination camps to maintain these camps and clear out the ghettos.

"They trained guards, some Russian prisoners of war and other people from Poland and Eastern Europe at the Trawniki camp near Lublin.

"Sometimes people were forced and had little choice and other times they were more voluntary.

"There is a vast amount of documentation about the activities at these camps and since the fall of the Soviet Union and a number of trials in America, new evidence has come to light.

"The majority seemed to be Ukrainian and they have been used in a number of trials in America, over 50 or 60, of war criminals, a great many of whom have come from Trawniki."

Mr Hendy has called for Dr Fostun's background to be investigated.

"At the moment his version of events doesn't seem credible. His name 3191, Mychailo Fostun, appears on a roster of SS men sent to Warsaw where war crimes were committed," he said.

"In cases in America, these documents have been accepted as genuine and authentic. He needs further investigation."

Lord Janner, former secretary of the House of Commons All-Party War Crimes Group and chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, has called for an investigation.

"I have called for an investigation into this man and we will await the response before we know where we go next."

Wimbledon MP Roger Casale backed the call for Dr Fostun's past to be investigated.

"I'm aware of the allegations.

"They're obviously very serious and my view is that it's in the interest of everybody that the matter should cleared up one way or another.

"It's better that the matter is investigated and the thing is resolved in front of a court."

Despite repeated invitations from the Wimbledon News, Dr Fostun had not made himself available for comment at the time of going to press.

January 31, 2003 11:00