Accused WWII criminal argues trial illegal

AACHEN, Germany, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An 88-year-old veteran of the SS in World War II is on trial in Germany on charges of killing three Dutch civilians during a 1944 crackdown on the Resistance.

Heinrich Boere, who grew up in the Netherlands as the child of a German mother and Dutch father, was captured at the end of the war and admitted the killings, Time magazine reports. But he was able to get to Germany and avoid extradition or trial for decades although he was convicted in absentia in Amsterdam in 1949.

The current trial was suspended soon after it began when Boere's lawyer, Gordon Christiansen, argued EU rules bar someone from being tried twice for the same crime. The court in Aachen is expected to rule next week and the trial to resume Nov. 17 if the decision goes against Boere.

The trials of Boere and John Demjanjuk, who spent most of his adult life in Ohio, are likely to be among the last in Germany for accused World War II criminals. Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem said Boere's prosecution "sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of murderers and that old age should not protect the killers of civilians."