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Germany court sentences former Nazi to life in prison

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A German court on Tuesday sentenced former Nazi SS member Heinrich Boere to life in prison for the 1944 murders of three Dutch civilians. Boere's trial began in October after he was declared medically fit to stand trial. During the trial, Boere admitted to the reprisal killings of a bicycle shop owner, a pharmacist, and a civilian member of the Dutch resistance, which he carried out as part of a SS death squad. Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949, but the sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Boere never served his sentence, as one German court refused to extradite him because of the probability that he was a German national, and another refused the request that he serve his sentence in a German jail due to the likelihood the trial was unfair because Boere was not present for the proceedings. Boere plans to appeal the court's decision and will not begin serving his sentence until the appellate process is finished. In November, a German court began the trial of accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk, marking the first time a Nazi war crimes trial will focus on a low-ranking foreigner rather than a commander. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk faces 27,900 accessory accounts stemming from his alleged involvement as a guard at Sobibor concentration camp. In August, a German district court sentenced former Nazi army officer Josef Scheungraber to life in prison for the 1944 reprisal killing of 10 Italian civilians. Scheungraber was convicted on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for ordering soldiers to blow up a barn in Falzano di Cortona, Tuscany, after forcing 11 civilians inside.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 23, 2010 (boomark / email).