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Nazi Suspect Living In Freedom In Germany Escapes Extradition To Netherlands


An 88-year-old German man considered one of the most prominent Nazi war crimes suspects alive won’t be extradited to the Netherlands, German officials said Wednesday.

Ingolstadt court spokesman Jochen Boesl said Klaas Carel Faber had objected to being extradited, and the Dutch request is unable to be granted as his consent is mandatory due to his German citizenship.

“That basically puts an end to the case,” said Munich prosecutor Alfons Obermeier. Dutch authorities have not been officially notified yet, he said.

Obermeier added that the option of the Netherlands asking for Faber to serve his sentence in Germany can also not be granted because of earlier court rulings.

The prosecutor’s office reviewed Faber’s case in August at the request of German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, but concluded he could not be prosecuted without new evidence.

Dutch prosecutors say Faber was convicted in 1947 of complicity in 22 murders and for aiding the Netherlands’ Nazi occupiers during World War II.

He was given a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison, but in 1952 escaped and fled to Germany where he has lived in freedom ever since.

The Dutch government last year issued a European arrest warrant for Faber.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center last year elevated Faber to No. 3 on its “most wanted” list as other suspects had passed away.

The center’s chief Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, said then that Faber volunteered for Hitler’s SS, a paramilitary organization loyal to Nazi ideology, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the 1940s.

Zuroff said he worked for the death squad code named “Silbertanne,” or “Silver Fir,” which carried out killings of resistance members, Nazi opponents, and people who hid Jews.

READ MORE: WASHINGTON POST



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