Kastner himself was eventually the defendant in a trial in which the Jerusalem District Court found that he was complicit in the Nazi murder of 740,000 Hungarian Jews, and had "sold his soul to the devil". The court found that Kastner collaborated with the Nazis' extermination of the Jews in Hungary, and by saving the war criminal Kurt Becher from its penalty. Kastner was subsequently assassinated in Israel in March 1957. The Supreme Court of Israel overturned the judgment against Kastner in 1958, except for the section exonerating Becher, whose status as a war criminal was determined in a 35 page decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Kastner's affidavit was perjurious, as Kastner had known of Becher's activities during the war.