Ex-Nazi Convicted, Given 5 Years
A military court convicted a former Nazi SS captain on Tuesday of taking part in the wartime slaughter of 335 civilians on the outskirts of Rome, then showed leniency by reducing his sentence from 15 to five years.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for 83-year-old Erich Priebke, who was arrested in 1994 in Argentina, where he lived for decades in an Andean resort town.
A co-defendant, former SS Maj. Karl Hass, 84, also was found guilty of participating in the March 24, 1944, massacre. The court first sentenced him to 10 years and eight months and then, applying the amnesty, reduced that to eight months. The court finally ordered him freed, ruling that he had already served that amount of time.
The massacre victims were shot on orders from Rome’s Nazi occupiers in retaliation for a bombing a day earlier by liberation fighters. That attack killed 33 Nazi soldiers.
Both defendants admitted killing two victims each. Priebke, saying the orders came from Adolf Hitler himself, told the court that refusing to carry out the executions would have meant his own death.
In a trial a year ago, Priebke was cleared, a verdict that prompted outrage and led to the retrial.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
