Report: Former Auschwitz guard who may stand trial living in Israel

One of the dozens of former Auschwitz death camp guards under investigation by Germany's prosecutor's office is a resident of Israel, reported German magazine "Der Spiegel" Tuesday.

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The man is one of seven suspects who live outside the country and are still being investigated, while dozens of others will be brought to trial, the magazine stressed. Those living abroad are in Austria, Brazil, Croatia, the US, Poland and Israel.

The German special prosecutor's office that investigates Nazi war crimes said Tuesday it is recommending charges against dozens of alleged former Auschwitz guards.

Federal prosecutor Kurt Schrimm, the head of the office in Ludwigsburg, said an investigation of 49 suspects turned up enough evidence to recommend that state prosecutors pursue charges of accessory to murder against 30 people in Germany who were stationed at the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

cases are being sent to the responsible state prosecutors' offices. It will be up to them to determine whether the elderly suspects are fit to stand trial and whether to bring official charges.

Accessory to murder charges can be filed under the same legal theory that Munich prosecutors used to try former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who died in a Bavarian nursing home last year while appealing his 2011 conviction on charges he served as a Sobibor death camp guard, Schrimm said.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was the first person convicted in Germany solely on the basis of serving as a camp guard, with no evidence of involvement in a specific killing.

Under the new legal argument, anyone who was involved in the operation of a death camp was an accessory to murder.

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