Europe News
WWII convict pleads poor health to avoid Nazi atrocity jail term
Nov 30, 2010, 12:44 GMT
Munich - Josef Scheungraber, a German Army officer who has been convicted of a wartime atrocity that left 10 Italians dead, is pleading poor health at the age of 92 as grounds to avoid jail, his lawyer said Tuesday.
He was convicted last year in Munich and lost an appeal in October, but is still free on bail.
The lawyer said Scheungraber had now formally applied to be excused from jail.
Scheungraber led a massacre in Italy while it was under Nazi control. Men were herded into a house at Falzano di Cortona in 1944, which was then dynamited. Only a youth survived.
The courts usually suspend prison terms for the aged if there is a risk that custody and only limited nursing care would hasten their deaths. At trial, Scheungraber seemed sprightly for his age.
Germany continues to hold John Demjanjuk, 90, in a jail during his trial for his alleged wartime service as a Nazi death camp guard.
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