SAN DIEGO MAN ORDERED DEPORTED FOR WORLD WAR II ACTIVITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303430002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~ Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26 :CIA-RDP90-005528000303430002-8 STAT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
15 September 1983
SAN DIEGO
SA~\ DIEGO MAN ORDERED DEPORTED FOR WORLD Wt~R II ACTIDITIES
A former European athlete who coached at San Diego schools has been ord?red
deported for allegedly taking part in the persecution of communists and Jews in
Latvia during World War II, officials said.
Edgars Laipenieks, 70, who left his native Latvia after the war and became a
citizen of Chile before emigrating to the United States, was ordered deported toy
Chile by the r"ive-member Board of Immigration Appeals in Washingtari, D.C.
The board said Wednesday that a review of Laipenieks' deportation trial
record showed "clear and convincing evidence" that he participated in
"persecution" of individuals in Latvia's Riga Central Prison "because of their
political opinions."
Laipenieks, a former coach at La Jolla Country Day School and the San Diego
Military Academy, steadfastly denied during his deportation hearing that he was
involved in war crimes.
"In Latvia, I was fighting the communists who had occupied my country," he
said in testimony punctuated by sobs. He admitted striking Riga inmates Burin g
interrogation, but said he d_id not beat anyone or carry a truncheon.
The panel concurred with Justice Department attorneys Bruce J. Einhorn and
Clarice Feldman that Laipenieks, in working with the Latvian Political Police
during the Nazi occupation, was active in an organization "analogous to the
Gestapo.'
i
The appeals board thus vacated z June 9, 1982, decision by Immigration Judge
John C. Williams that Laipenie~CS`, who served as a CIA informant after the war,
was free to remain here because the government had failed to prove he was
irivclved in war crimes.
Williams handed down his decision at the conclusion of c lengthy deportation
hearing that produced 2,000 pages of testimony into brutality at Riga Central
Prison during Nazi occupation.
Testimony included videotaped depositions from witnesses still in Latvia, now
part of the Soviet Union.
The stocky, white-haired Laipenieks testified he was a member of the
anti-communist Latvian Political Department before the Soviets occupied Latvia
After Germany occupied the Baltic state in 1941, Laipenieks said he was
recruited into the Latvian Political Police.
He said his responsibility with this organization was to hunt down communists
who stayed behind and agents and terrorists wt~o were being filtered in by the
Soviet Union.
Laipenieks participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, coached Chile's track
team yin 1952 and 1956 and coached the Mexican team in 1964.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26 :CIA-RDP90-005528000303430002-8