Authorities in Bavaria, southern Germany, said Friday there was little chance of new proceedings against an SS hitman who has lived as a free man in Germany since escaping from a Dutch prison in 1952.��

A spokesman for the Bavarian justice ministry, which is responsible for the case, said there was only a “theoretical” chance of reopening investigations into Klaas Carel Faber, 88, convicted in the Netherlands of murdering 22 Jews.��

Israel’s Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman had written to German counterpart Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger to see if the case can be re-examined.��

Public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk this month cited the state’s justice ministry as saying it needed “new facts not known until now” before the Dutch verdict could be enforced.��

Faber, who is high on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of wanted Nazis, was given German citizenship for serving in the SS. Several attempts to extradite him have failed.��

He served in a special SS unit in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands which killed Dutch civilians deemed as “anti-German” as reprisals for resistance attacks.��

He was sentenced to death in the Netherlands, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment.��

In March this year, another member of this unit who also escaped to Germany, Heinrich Boere, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court. His lawyers had said they were planning an appeal and Boere, 88, remains free.

(Source: EJP / AFP)