Brunner: Sent 130,000 Jews to their deaths
Nazi war criminal may be in Brazil
Brazilian police suspect Alois Brunner, a deputy of Eichmann who spent many years in hiding in Syria, is living in Brazil; suspect denies he is wanted Nazi war criminal
Brazilian police are checking suspicions that the world's living most wanted Nazi war criminal, Alois Brunner, is hiding in the country, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
Brunner, 95, was deputy to Adolf Eichmann, and aided the carrying out of the "Final Solution." He is responsible for sending at least 130,000 Jews, many of them from France, to Nazi death camps.
The man suspected of being Brunner by Brazilian police completely denies that he is a Nazi war criminal, and claims he was born in 1939, saying that he was a child during the Second World War
According to Haaretz, in May, Brazilian police sent a letter detailing its suspicions to the international police federation, Interpol, in France. In the letter, Brazilian police asked for help from countries around the world to locate Brunner's fingerprints, or other identifying marks.
Six countries have asked for Brunner to be turned over to date: Germany, France, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Greece. He was tried in absence in France for crimes against humanity. In 1954, he was sentenced to death, and in 2001, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Brunner has been wanted around the world for 60 years. After the Second World War, he was arrested in Vienna by the American army, but managed to escape with a fake identity.
He later arrived in Egypt and then came to Syria, where he resided in the mid-1960s.
In Syria, Brunner became a "special advisor" to the Syrian government, and a personal friend of former Syrian president Hafez Assad.
During his time in Syria, Brunner was injured twice, in 1961, and in 1980, by letter bombs sent by the Mossad. He lost his left eye and some fingers in the attempted assassinations – marks that could ease the police investigation in Brazil and verify whether their suspect is Brunner.
