Concentration camp trial: Defense demands acquittal for 101-year-olds

Created: 06/27/2022Updated: 06/27/2022 11:53 am

A figure of the blind Justitia.

© Sonja Wurtscheid/dpa/symbol image

After nine months, the well-noticed trial of a suspected concentration camp guard in Brandenburg/Havel is entering its final phase.

While prosecutors are asking for a prison sentence, the defense is asking for an acquittal.

A verdict is expected on Tuesday.

Brandenburg/Havel - In the trial against a suspected former SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the defense attorney has demanded an acquittal for his client.

Defense attorney Stefan Waterkamp said in his pleading on Monday that the 101-year-old could not have been shown to have acted as an accessory to the murder of thousands of camp inmates.

According to the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, however, general activity in the security service of a concentration camp is not sufficient for a conviction for aiding and abetting.

In the event that the court should come to a conviction, Waterkamp applied for a suspended sentence as an alternative.

A five-year sentence, as requested by prosecutors, would be disproportionately high compared to previous sentences against Nazi perpetrators, Waterkamp said.

In addition, the evidence is very thin, said the defense attorney.

So it cannot be ruled out that there were other people with this name in his client's Lithuanian home village.

However, there is no document on SS activity that the 101-year-old would have signed himself.

In his final statement before the verdict expected on Tuesday, the accused again protested his innocence.

"I don't know what I should have done at all," said the 101-year-old.

He comes from Lithuania and does not know what was discussed in the process.

"I don't know why I'm sitting here in the penalty box," he lamented.

"I have nothing to do with it."

In the process that has been ongoing since October last year, the 101-year-old has consistently denied that he worked in the concentration camp at all and stated that he worked as a farmhand near Pasewalk (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) during the period in question from 1942 to early 1945.

However, the public prosecutor's office bases its indictment on documents relating to an SS guard with the man's name, date of birth and place of birth, as well as other documents.

The 101-year-old is accused of being an accessory to the murder of at least 3,522 camp inmates before the Neuruppin district court.

For organizational reasons, the trial is being conducted at the home of the elderly defendant in Brandenburg/Havel.

Prosecutors had asked for five years in prison for the man.

Co-plaintiff representative Thomas Walther pleaded for a prison sentence of several years, which should not be less than five years.

Two other co-plaintiffs called for a guilty verdict without naming a specific penalty.

dpa