A former Hungarian war crimes suspect once wanted in connection with the massacre of as many as 2,000 Serbs and Jews is dead.

News agencies say Sandor Kepiro died Saturday in Budapest. He was 97.

Kepiro once topped the most wanted list at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to tracking down Holocaust-era war criminals.

The center and Hungarian prosecutors said Kepiro was a member of Hungary's pro-Nazi police during World War Two. They accused him of taking part in the January 1942 massacre and helping to dump the bodies into the icy Danube River.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's top Nazi hunter found Kepiro living in Budapest in 2006 and alerted Hungarian authorities. But a Hungarian court freed Kepiro in July of this year, citing a lack of evidence.

The ruling sparked demonstrations in Budapest and Novi Sad, where the massacre took place.