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90-yr-old former Nazi gets life term
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-12 10:59 MUNICH: A court Tuesday jailed a 90-year-old former German army commander for life for ordering a massacre of Italian civilians in 1944, in one of Germany's last major Nazi war crimes trials.  The court in the southern city of Munich convicted Josef Scheungraber for the murder of 10 people in a mass killing that claimed the lives of 14 residents of Falzano di Cortona in Tuscany. "Josef Scheungraber was the only officer in the company" of soldiers who carried out the murders in retaliation for an attack by Italian partisans that killed two German soldiers, presiding judge Manfred Goetzl said. Scheungraber, at the time the commander of Gebirgs-Pionier-Bataillon 818, a mountain infantry battalion, had been charged with 14 counts of murder and one of attempted murder. He was convicted of 10 murders and let off on other charges due to a lack of evidence.
The prosecution had demanded a life sentence for Scheungraber, who had spent the decades since the war in the sleepy Bavarian town of Ottobrunn, running a woodworking shop and taking part in marches in memory of fallen Nazi soldiers. His defense attorneys called for his acquittal, citing contradictions in witness testimony on the events 65 years on. They said they would appeal the sentence. Scheungraber, dressed in a traditional Bavarian jacket, is hard of hearing and walks with a cane but appeared alert and in good health as he listened to the verdict against him. Residents of Falzano di Cortona and descendants of the victims, in the courtroom as the verdict was read, applauded the sentence. "This is a very important judgment for our families and for our loved ones who cannot be here," said Angiola Lescai, 60, who lost a grandfather and an uncle in the massacre. "It also sends a message for the future - that certain things must not be allowed to happen and in the end, when they do, someone bears personal responsibility." |
