ROME - Ten former members of the Nazi SS were convicted Wednesday of taking part in the 1944 massacre of more than 500 villagers in northern Italy and sentenced to life in prison.
The defendants, all German men in their 80s, were tried in absentia in the Italian town of La Spezia. The men are believed to be in Germany.
“After 61 years justice was done,” Michele Sillicani, mayor of the Tuscan village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, where the slaughter occurred, told the Italian news agency ANSA.
“We did not want revenge, only justice,” he was quoted as saying. “It was a premeditated massacre.”
Luigi Trucco, a lawyer for two of the defendants, said the judges’ verdict would likely be appealed. Trucco said “the judges evidently accepted the prosecutors’ argument that (the defendants) all knew and were all present.”
Prosecutors had requested life sentences for the defendants, who were charged with premeditated murder.
In August 1944, about 300 SS troops surrounded Sant’Anna, which had been flooded with refugees, ostensibly to hunt for partisans. Instead, they rounded up and shot villagers, according to survivors. Others were herded into enclosed areas such as basements and killed with hand grenades.
Historical documents are not clear on precisely how many people were killed, but the most commonly cited number is 560. Many were children, women and elderly people.
In August, German Interior Minister Otto Schily joined a commemoration in Sant’Anna marking the 60th anniversary of the massacre, calling the village a “place of shame” for his nation.
The slaughter was one of the worst in a series of atrocities by Nazi troops in central and northern of Italy during World War II. Italian authorities began investigating the massacre a few years ago when officials found reports on the killings drawn up by Allied forces at the end of the war.
“My thoughts turn to all the victims’ families that had to wait for so many years,” Prosecutor Marco De Paolis told ANSA.
De Paolis told the judges that the defendants chose to participate in the killings and were not just following orders, ANSA reported. He said that since the 16th Panzagrenadier Division had suffered heavy losses before the massacre, soldiers were acting above their rank, and that no witness had cited cases of soldiers being punished for disobeying orders.
In his closing remarks, Trucco said the prosecutor’s arguments were “based on abstractions and suggestions,” ANSA reported.
I dont care what age they are, if they did the crime and it can be proved, they should still be punished.
Just like Melita Norwood should have been prosecuted for her extensive activities involving giving nuclear secrets for the USSR.
the same happened with one in argentina,but,he was arrested in chile,here,we don´t persecute them.