LA SPEZIA, Italy, June 23 (UPI) -- Italy has sentenced 10 former Nazis, now in their 80s and living in Germany, to life terms in absentia for the 1944 massacre of 560 people in Tuscany.
But the defendants will not serve their sentences because they are too old and will not be extradited to Italy, the Times of London reported.
The victims, including men, women and children, in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, were slaughtered because the Nazis failed to find any anti-fascists in the area. The soldiers were with the 16th Panzer Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS, the report said.
The military court in La Spezia in Northern Italy was packed with the children and grandchildren of the victims, the report said. Enio Mancini, who was 6 at the time of the massacre, said of the verdict: "It is a huge success, an almost unexpected one. We have waited 60 years for this."
Italy reopened the investigations into Nazi war crimes in 1996 after pressure from victims' relatives.
