Nazi convictions have only 'symbolic value'

"It was one of the most savage crimes of the last war, a real massacre," Mr Prodi said of the killing of more than 700 people in the small town of Marzabotto, in the Apennines, north-central Italy, by retreating Nazi troops during the Second World War.

An Italian military tribunal convicted the ten German soldiers and acquitted seven other defendants. The defendants were all tried in absentia and are believed to live in Germany.

Germany amended its laws last year to allow extradition of its citizens to stand trial abroad within the EU. However, difficulties with the extradition process meant the convictions hold only "symbolic value", Mr Prodi said.

"[The convictions] on the one hand give the sense of the need that justice should always come in these cases, on the other hand [there is] also frustration at why it didn't come sooner."

Nazi troops slaughtered more than 700 villagers - mostly women, children and the elderly - in what was ostensibly a hunt for resistance fighters. They lobbed grenades at civilians locked in a house and sprayed machine-gun fire to hit a row of children.

Known as the "Butcher of Marzabotto", Walter Reder, a major in Adolf Hitler's lite SS guard, was captured after the war by British forces in Austria, convicted in Italy in 1951 and given a life sentence for ordering the deaths of the villagers.

Reder was released from prison in 1985 at the request of the Austrian government because he was suffering from a serious stomach ailment.

The Italian military tribunal also ordered the convicted defendants to pay a total of about 100 million (65 million) in damages to the few survivors and relatives of the victims, but there is little chance of any money being paid since many of them are living on modest pensions.