Munich court accepts Falzano, Italy war crime case
Munich - A Munich court has agreed to try an 89-year-old former German officer for the 1944 Falzano massacre in Italy, two years after an Italian court sentenced him in absentia to life in jail, court officials said Friday.
Fourteen Italian civilians were killed in the June 1944 atrocity, a reprisal by Nazi forces for an ambush by Italian partisans.
The defendant, who was a lieutenant in a mountain troops unit, lived quietly in Ottobrunn, a Munich suburb, after World War II and was a town councillor for two decades. A court spokeswoman said his murder trial would begin September 15.
He and a major allegedly plotted the reprisal in Falzano, a village in Tuscany.
The Italian military court's September 2006 sentence cannot be enforced because Germany does not extradite its own citizens. German prosecutors are expected to present many of the same documents and witnesses who attended the Italy trial. (dpa)
