June 22



SWITZERLAND:

Gypsies to sue IBM on 'Nazi link'


A Swiss court has cleared the way for Gypsy campaigners to sue IBM over
allegations that the computer company's expertise helped the Nazis commit
mass murder more efficiently, the plaintiffs' lawyer said Tuesday.

The Geneva appeals court threw out an earlier decision by a lower tribunal
which last year said it lacked jurisdiction, said the Gypsies' lawyer,
Henri-Philippe Sambuc.

The Gypsies filed the lawsuit in Geneva because IBM's wartime European
headquarters was in the city. They claim the office was the information
technology multinational's hub for trade with the Nazis.

"IBM's complicity through material or intellectual assistance to the
criminal acts of the Nazis during World War II via its Geneva office
cannot be ruled out," said the appeals court ruling. It cited "a
significant body of evidence indicating that the Geneva office could have
been aware that it was assisting these acts."

In June 2003, the lower court said IBM only had an "antenna" in the Swiss
city, but the Geneva official archives contain documents showing that in
1936 IBM opened an office under the name "International Business Machines
Corporation New York, European Headquarters."

No immediate reaction to the ruling was available from IBM's Geneva
lawyers, who have previously referred requests for comment to the
company's U.S. headquarters.
The news of the ruling came before business hours at the IBM's New York
base.

The company has said its German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen
GmbH -- or Dehomag -- was taken over by the Nazis before World War II, and
it had no control over operations there or how IBM machines were used by
the Nazis.

Sambuc maintains that the company's Geneva office continued to coordinate
Europe-wide trade with the Nazis, acting on clear instructions from world
headquarters in New York.

The group represented by Sambuc -- Gypsy International Recognition and
Compensation Action -- sued IBM for "moral reparation" and US$20,000 each
in
damages on behalf of four Gypsies from Germany and France and one
Polish-born Swedish Gypsy. All five plaintiffs were orphaned in the
Holocaust.

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler meets IBM founder Thomas J. Watson in 1937.

The campaigners began planning the lawsuit after U.S. author Edwin Black
claimed in a book published in February 2001 that IBM punch-card machines
enabled the Nazis to make their killing operations more efficient.

Black said the punch-card machines were used to codify information about
people sent to concentration camps. The number 12 represented a Gypsy
inmate, while Jews were recorded with the number 8. The code D4 meant a
prisoner had been killed.

The Nazis are believed to have killed around 600,000 Gypsies along with 6
million Jews. Although Gypsy groups say the number of Gypsies killed could
have been as high as 1.5 million.

"It does not appear inconsistent to conclude that the respondent (IBM)
facilitated the task of the Nazis in their committing of crimes against
humanity -- acts which were counted and codified by IBM machines," said
the court ruling.

IBM's German division has paid into Germany's government-industry
initiative
to compensate people forced to work for the Nazis during the war.

In April 2001, a class action lawsuit against IBM in New York was dropped
after lawyers said they feared it would slow down payments from the German
Holocaust fund. German companies had sought freedom from legal actions
before committing to
the fund.

The Geneva case is the first Holocaust-related action against IBM in
Europe, said Sambuc. A city court will likely hear the lawsuit in the
fall, unless IBM lodges an appeal at the Federal Tribunal, Switzerland's
supreme court.

(source: Associated Press)