COLOGNE, Germany, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- A Cologne, Germany, court said Tuesday a case against a former Nazi soldier accused of involvement in a 1944 massacre in France will be dropped because of insufficient evidence.
The suspect, identified as Werner Christukat, 89, was charged earlier this year with the deaths of 25 people, and for aiding in the deaths of hundreds more, in Nazi-occupied France on June 10, 1944, four days after the D-Day invasion. Prosecutors said he, 19 at the time, was part of a firing squad in the southwestern French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, and later was involved in the burning of a church in which hundreds were imprisoned.