German prosecutors announced that they would charge a man of 100 years old with 3,518 murder allegations. Apparently, the 100-year-old man used to work as a camp guard at the Nazis concentration camp during World War II. Those camps used to be in the outskirts of Berlin.
The man allegedly worked from 1942 to 1945 at the Sachsenhausen camp. Cyrill Klement said that he was an enlisted worker at the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party. Klement led the centenarian’s investigation for the office of the Neuruppin prosecutor.
The authorities did not release the name of the man according to the privacy rules of German law. Although he is very old, prosecutors have analyzed him for trial. Klement said that there would have to be accommodations for the man. They would see that he gets limited hours of a session in the court. His health has to be taken care of.
The office of special federal prosecutors has transferred the case to the Neuruppin office. Klement said that the transfer happened in 2019 in Ludwigsburg for investigating Nazi-era war crimes.
Earlier 95-year-old woman faced same reasoning for prosecution
This prosecution happened after a prosecutor from Itzehoe accused a woman of 95-year-old being accessory to murder. She worked in the Stutthof concentration camp. The woman was the SS commandant’s secretary.
The woman’s case relied on the latest legal exemplar of German that whoever helped in Nazi camps will have to face prosecution of being accessory to the murders.
The precedent for charging conviction to Nazi camp workers
The precedent started in 2011. John Demjanjuk, who used to be an autoworker in Ohio, faced conviction. He had allegations of being an accessory to murder. The former auto worker was a guard in Poland at the Sobibor death camp. German-occupied that camp. Demjanjuk did not accept the allegations. However, his death happened before his trial.
The precedent got solidified when in 2015, Oskar Gröning, an ex-Auschwitz guard, faced conviction by the federal court. It was the same allegations.
German courts had asked the prosecutors to arrange substantial evidence before that case happened. It used to be a tough job to present evidence that could prove the ex guard’s involvement in the camp killings.
Klement said that proof of being part of the horrific death machinery is enough to charge Gröning and Demjanjuk with accessory to murder. Further, the 100-year-old man’s trial date is yet to come.
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