REUTERS

Dutch airline KLM will probably seek an independent investigation into whether it flew Nazi fugitives to Argentina after World War II, the national airline said on Tuesday. Questions over KLM's past surfaced last week after a Dutch television documentary claimed to have discovered archive documents showing the airline played an active role in helping suspected war criminals flee Germany. KLM, now part of Air France, said it had never found any proof in its own archives but had also never denied a possible involvement. "The checks we have done in our archive so far have not delivered any specific information about this sort of transportation. But that does not mean that it has not been done," KLM spokesman Bart Koster said. Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, the doctor of the Auschwitz death camp nicknamed the "Angel of Death," were among the large number of fugitive Nazis harbored by Argentina after the war. "We take these signals seriously and if we are a responsible company, we should also be responsible for what has been done in the past," Koster said, adding that KLM was in talks about initiating an independent inquiry.(09/05/2007)