Military Court in Italy Upholds Conviction of Ex-Nazi Priebke

A military appeals court Saturday upheld the conviction of former SS Capt. Erich Priebke for his role in Italy’s worst World War II atrocity and sentenced him to life in prison.

But prosecutors said that Priebke, 85, would not have to go to jail. Because of his frail health, the onetime Nazi will stay under house arrest.

The five-judge panel also convicted former SS Maj. Karl Hass, also 85, of helping carry out the 1944 massacre of 335 men and boys near the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of the German-occupied capital.

“The Ardeatine Caves dead can now rest in peace,” said Rosina Stame, whose father, a resistance fighter, was one of the massacre victims.

Attorneys for both said they would appeal to Italy’s Supreme Court.

The massacre was ordered in retaliation for a bomb attack by Italian resistance fighters that killed 33 German soldiers.

Priebke and Hass admitted to shooting two people each. Both insisted they were obeying orders on pain of death.

Saturday’s verdict lengthened the sentence Priebke received last summer from a lower military court. That court sentenced him to 15 years but immediately reduced that to a few months because of previous amnesties and for time he had served in detention since his 1994 extradition from Argentina, where he had lived for decades.