Budapest  - A prominent Nazi-hunter slammed Hungary Wednesday for failing to prosecute a suspected war criminal on the day the Central European nation commemorated the victims of the Holocaust.

"It is much easier to have a commemoration ceremony than put a Hungarian who was involved in the crimes on trial," Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Centre's Jerusalem office, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Zuroff is furious that Hungary has not prosecuted Sandor Kepiro, 94, who is one of the leading suspects targeted in the Wiesenthal Centre's drive to find and prosecute criminals from World War II before they die.

The centre in 2006 uncovered a judgement against Kepiro for his role in the massacre of over 1,000 Jews and Serbs in Novi Sad, Serbia in January 1942.

Kepiro, who maintains his innocence, was sentenced to 10 years for the crime in 1944, but fled to Argentina when the Nazi-aligned Arrow Cross Party gained power and freed him.

Post-war authorities sentenced him to 14 years in absentia in 1946. He finally returned to Hungary in 1996 and now lives in Budapest.

However, a Hungarian court last year ruled the sentence cannot be carried out and prosecutors have dragged their feet on beginning new proceedings.

"They should put him on trial and throw him in jail. I think there is enough evidence," Zuroff said.

The criticism came as Hungary was set to remember the victims of the Holocaust on the 64th anniversary of the day fascist forces began to imprison Hungarian Jews in ghettos.

Politicians and civil leaders were expected to take part in a torch-lit march from Budapest's downtown Dohany Synagogue - which sits at the edge of the former ghetto - to a memorial on the River Danube, where many Jews were shot and thrown into the water.

Candles were also expected to be lit at a memorial concert outside the Terror House museum, which is dedicated to the victims of fascist and communist repression.

Zuroff said that while he was happy that a commemoration was being held, more should be done by Hungary and other regional nations.

"There is no question that there are problems with the manner in which Hungary is facing its past, as there are with every post-communist country in Eastern Europe," Zuroff said.

"There are many of examples of things that should be done - commemorations, putting killers on trial, education, acknowledging the guilt. Some of those tasks are easier than other," he added.

Jewish groups in Hungary are currently worried about what they see as rising anti-Semitism - particularly the formation of the Hungarian Guard, the uniformed wing of extreme-right party Jobbik.

The guard wears black uniforms Jewish groups say resemble those worn by World War II fascists and has chosen as its coat of arms a variation of the medieval flag associated with the Arrow Cross Party.

Over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to death camps or killed locally during World War II. Much of the butchery was carried out under the direction of the Arrow Cross Party. (dpa)