ROME, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- The refusal by leaders in Rome to allow a funeral for Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, who died last week, has created uncertainty over his burial place.
A plan to conduct a private funeral in a downtown Rome church, proposed by Paolo Giachini, Priebke's lawyer, was quickly condemned by Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino and Catholic Church authorities, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Priebke, 100, died in Rome last week under house arrest while serving a life sentence for his role in a 1944 reprisal killing at a quarry outside Rome, the Ardeatine Caves, in which 335 men and boys were shot to death.
Marino said, "Any form of solemn funeral will be denied. To bury Priekbe in Rome would be a slap that our city will not receive."
Jorge Priebke, Erich Priebke's son, reacted angrily to the news his father would not be buried in Rome.
Speaking in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he told ANSA, "Where should my father be buried? Even Israel; that way they'd be happy. It is almost an injustice. Why don't people look at what is happening in the middle East, Syria...Why do they continue instead to pick on someone from a war era that ended more than 60 years ago?"
