Europe News

Serbia issues arrest warrant for Nazi war crimes suspect

Apr 2, 2010, 9:21 GMT

Belgrade - Serbia has issued an international arrest warrant for a US citizen suspected of committing war crimes while serving as a Nazi officer in Belgrade during the World War Two.

Serbia prosecutors said that 88-year-old Peter Egner was suspected of committing war crimes against civilians in Belgrade from 1941 to 1944.

Egner, born in the former Yugoslavia, volunteered for a Nazi- controlled police unit that killed 17,000 civilians - mainly Serbs, Jews and Roma - at the Old Fairgrounds on the banks of the Sava River.

Egner lives in a retirement home in the north-western US state of Washington. In July 2008 the US authorities moved to revoke his citizenship, saying he concealed his service in a Nazi unit that killed thousands of civilians in a Belgrade death camp after moving to the US in 1960s.

He denied all charges.