94-yr-old former Nazi on trial
2004-03-15 20:48
La Spezia, Italy - A trial involving Johannes Karl Schiffmann, a 94-year-old former Nazi officer accused of executing Italian civilians in 1944, opened in front of a military tribunal in the city of La Spezia on Monday.
Schiffmann, a former lieutenant under Adolf Hitler, is believed to be living in an old peoples' home in Germany and did not attend the hearing.
Along with three other officers, now deceased, he is accused of rounding up, torturing and shooting 11 Italian civilians in the region of Emilia Romagna, a massacre that has come to be know as the "carnage of San Cesario".
The evidence backing the accusations only emerged in 1994.
The opening hearing was suspended after lawyers asked judges to order a medical examination of the defendant, who they said suffers from Alzheimer's. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA