In 1961 Ain-Ervin Mere was put on trial for leadership in the murder of 5,000 foreign Jews in Estonia, but his request for extradition by the British government, claiming that the Soviet government, who were conducted the trials, had insufficient evidence. On 1 April 1999, Anthony Sawoniuk was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering two Jews in Britain's first Nazi war crimes trial. Sawoniuk had led "search-and-kill" police squads to hunt down Jews trying to escape after nearly 3,000 were massacred at Domachevo in Nazi-occupied Belarus during September 1942. He died in prison on 7 November 2005 at the age of 84.