AACHEN, Germany, March 23 (UPI) -- An 88-year-old former Nazi soldier was sentenced to life Tuesday for killing three Dutch civilians during World War II, prosecutors in Germany said.
Heinrick Boere, who appeared for sentencing in a wheel chair, had admitted to picking the men at random to fulfill a Nazi rule that three people must die for every attempt on the life of a German or a German collaborator.
When asked, before his sentencing, how he could do it, Boere laughingly answered: "Not difficult, you just curled your finger around the trigger and pulled -- bang!" he said. "It was really simple."
Boere was sentenced in absentia by an Amsterdam court in 1949 but lived freely in Germany for years, working as a coal miner and then drawing a German pension.
Boere joined the Nazi Waffen-SS in 1940 after the German invasion of the Netherlands. Working in a so-called reprisal unit, he killed a pharmacist, a businessman and a bicycle shop owner, The Times of London reported Tuesday.
The case against him lapsed until 2003, when Dutch authorities pressed for a new trial, this time in Germany. The case was delayed by more appeals from Boere's lawyers, who were said to be considering yet another appeal.
