Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, 97, the world's most wanted Nazi war criminal for his role in the movement that sent 15,700 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz, was found yesterday in Budapest, Hungary, living a normal life amongst unassuming neighbours, 15 years after his whereabouts were last known.

Csizsik-Csatary, who was tracked down by campaigners at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, adamantly denied allegations about his past when questioned at his front door and turned journalists away, having previously been watched and followed for four hours as he took a leisurely stroll through the city he now calls home.

He was a police commander in charge of a Jewish ghetto in Kassa, Hungary, and reports reveal that Csizsik-Csatary both oversaw and personally conducted the whipping of women and instigated a shoot-on-sight policy if they tried to escape.

After the Allied victory was declared in 1948, Csizsik-Csataray fled Kassa after being sentenced to death for war crimes and his location was not known until 1997, when he surfaced as an art dealer in Canada. Consequently, the Canadian government revoked his citizenship, but before deportation plans could be finalised, Csizsik-Csatary fled once more and since then, authorities had failed to track him down.

Prosecutors in Hungary are now reviewing the evidence in front of them.