Accused Nazi War Criminal Extradited to West Germany
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BUENOS AIRES — Accused Nazi war criminal Josef Franz Leo Schwammberger, charged with personally killing hundreds of Jewish concentration camp inmates, was extradited from Argentina to West Germany on Wednesday to face trial for mass murder and torture.
A West German Embassy spokesman said the 78-year-old Schwammberger, former commandant of the Przemysl and Mielec concentration camps in Poland, was placed aboard a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Frankfurt after being placed in the custody of German security officials.
Schwammberger was arrested in a rural area of Argentina on Nov. 13, 1987.
Argentina does not have an extradition agreement with West Germany, but prosecutors argued that Schwammberger illegally obtained Argentine citizenship by hiding his past arrest record. They argued that, because of the technicality, he was not an Argentine and could be deported.
Schwammberger is believed to have fled to Argentina in 1948 after escaping from a French detention camp where he allegedly signed a confession admitting that he murdered 35 prisoners at the Przemysl camp and kept their belongings.
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