WORLD BRIEFING / GERMANY
A German court ruled that an elderly former Nazi hit-squad member is medically unfit to stand trial for the World War II reprisal killings of three Dutch civilians.
Defense attorney Gordon Christiansen said Heinrich Boere, 87, suffered from a heart condition and could not take the stress of a trial. He said Boere had “almost died” twice since being charged in April.
Aachen state court spokesman Georg Winkel said in a statement that the decision was based on a thorough two-day medical exam of Boere.
But the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s top Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, questioned whether Boere was truly ill and argued that if Boere had been pursued more vigorously earlier, his health would not have been a factor.
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