Former German officer, 90, to face war crimes trial

Published on Monday 15 September 2008 22:10

A 90-YEAR-OLD former officer in the German army is fit enough to stand trial on charges that he ordered the reprisal killings of 14 civilians in Italy during the Second World War, a Munich court ruled yesterday.

Josef Scheungraber has denied the allegations that he ordered the killings in June, 1944 in Falzano di Cortona, near the Tuscan town of Arezzo, when he was a 25-year-old German Wehrmacht lieutenant.

The indictment says he ordered his soldiers to shoot three Italian men and one woman as retribution for the killing of two soldiers. He then allegedly ordered 11 civilians to be herded into a barn, and blown up.

One boy, 15 at the time, survived the explosion, and was expected to be among 22 witnesses at the trial. Evidence is to begin on 29 September, and some may give statements by video link.

Scheungraber is charged with 14 counts of murder. He has already been convicted of the same crimes by an Italian military court and was sentenced in absentia in 2006 to life in prison, though he has served no time.

Scheungraber's age has kept him out of jail pending trial and he will only be asked to testify for a few hours at a time. But if found guilty, he will face an automatic life sentence, meaning he will die behind bars.