Australia's acceptance of alleged Nazi war criminal Konrad Kalejs has sparked strong protests and criticism.

Kalejs, an 86-year-old Latvian who took Australian citizenship in 1957, was accused of being an officer in a World War II death squad responsible for killing 30,000 civilians in Latvia

He flew into Melbourne, the Victoria state, Friday night after being thrown out of Britain.

People rallied at the Melbourne airport to protest against Australia's acceptance of Kalejs.

The country's federal Opposition and the Jewish groups have united in their calls for stringent investigations into Kalejs's war record, spurred by the revelation that past scrutinies were not exhaustive.

The Opposition called on the government to "find the political will" to urge the federal police to reopen their inquiry into Kalejs.

"They've got to do more than just welcome Mr. Kalejs back," said the acting Opposition leader Simon Crean. "There is now new evidence came to light, since the war crimes unit was wound up."

The Opposition also wanted Prime Minister John Howard to take direct responsibility for a fresh investigation into the Latvian-born Australian citizen.

Federal labor MP Michael Danby, who has been leading the Opposition's protests against Kalejs, said Howard should assume control of the matter.

At the very least, Justice Minister Amanda Van stone should request that Australian federal police investigate new evidence against Kalejs and see if he could face criminal trial in Australia, he said.

Jewish student leaders in Melbourne said on Friday night they wanted "justice" for the 30,000 murdered Latvian civilians, who were primarily Jews, and the 6 million "brothers and sisters" who were killed in the Holocaust.

"We have come Canberra January 8 to send an unequivocal message to our federal government," said Australian Union of Jewish Students spokesman Lior Harel.

The community would not welcome to Australia a man awarded a service medallion by the SS (Nazi shock troops and concentration camp guards), he said.

At the same time, the heat was turned up internationally. Lord Greville Janner, the former secretary of the British Parliament's war crimes group, called on Australia to "actively go and seek new evidence" against Kalejs.

Israel's Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center urged a change in Australian law to deal summarily with suspected war criminals.

"I don't think (Kalejs) deserves to be left alone," said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"We urge the Australian government to renew its investigations and adopt a policy of denaturalization and deportation which has been successful both in the United States and Canada," he said.

As an Australian citizen since 1957, Kalejs has twice been deported to Australia - from the United States in 1994 and Canada in 1997.

He left Australia in June 1998 and was last month found living in a retirement home in Leicestershire, Britain.

Meanwhile, Australia's acting Prime Minister John Anderson refuted the claims Australia lacked the political will to pursue Kalejs.

He said the case had been "pretty closely examined" by the special investigations unit and others and it had been decided at the time there was insufficient evidence to proceed with.

But if fresh evidence were available, "it ought to be produced and action can be taken," he said.

Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone Saturday confirmed the government was trying as a matter of priority to set up a formal extradition relationship with the Latvian government, to which it had sent "significant material" in 1998.

In the wake of Friday night's return to Australia of Kalejs, Vanstone said the Australian government had been unfairly and unjustly maligned and it was time to "call a halt."

"I'm very angry and very annoyed that Australia's reputation is being maligned and I understand that many, many other Australians would feel the same way," she said.

"No war criminal is welcome in Australia anywhere other than in an Australian jail," she said. "But who is a war criminal is something that will be decided not by ministers, not by governments, not by commentators, not by the media and not by overseas commentators.

"It is a matter to be judged by the courts and I've already indicated that a premature move to prosecution of any criminal can lead, where the criminal is guilty, to a most unjust result," she said. (Xinhua)