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Suspected Nazi killer goes on trial for war crimes
Oct 28, 2009, 12:52 GMT
Aachen, Germany - A former Nazi SS trooper went on trial Wednesday for the murder of three civilians in German-occupied Netherlands during World War II.
Heinrich Boere, 88, was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949 for the killings. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, but Boere escaped prison by fleeing to Germany.
A German court charged him with the killings in April 2008.
At the start of the day's proceedings in Aachen, near the Dutch border, the defence filed a motion against chief prosecutor Ulrich Mass, questioning his impartiality.
Defence counsel Gordon Christiansen said the prosecutor had given interviews before the trial, saying that he wanted a conviction at all costs.
The motion meant there was no time for the court to read the charges against Boere, who was ordered to stand trial despite suffering from a serious heart ailment.
He is accused of being part of Nazi SS killer unit that shot dead three Dutchmen in Breda, Voorschoten and Wassenaar in July and September 1944.
Boere is sixth on a list of the 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals issued by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem.
Top of the list is John Demjanjuk, who is to go on trial in Germany next month accused of involvement in mass murder of Jews in the Nazi death camp at Sobibor in German-occupied Poland.
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