Off the wire
China refutes intrusion into Japan's territorial waters  • Toxic running track removed from Beijing primary school  • China encourages local cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe  • Kenya pledges action on desertification  • New joint reseach to promote Africa's development agenda  • Victim of Japanese sexual slavery renews call for justice  • Possible Fed rate hikes to slightly impact China economy: Bloomberg  • Dongfeng Honda to recall over 1 mln vehicles  • Road accident claims four lives in SW Tanzania  • Roundup: Expert says 80 pct of British MPs once faced harassment  
You are here:   Home

94-year-old former Auschwitz guard sentenced to five years in jail

Xinhua, June 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

A 94-year-old former Auschwitz death camp guard was convicted of accessory to the murder of over 170,000 people, and sentenced to five years in jail on Friday.

A court in northern German city of Detmold ruled that Reinhold Hanning, the former guard, participated as an accessory to the killing of more than 170,000 people from 1942 to 1944 at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland, German dpa news agency reported.

"He was in Auschwitz for nearly two and half years and thus supported the mass murder," said Judge Anke Grudda.

At least 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz death camp during the second World War, most of them Jews.

During the trial which started in February, Hanning said he was ashamed that he was aware innocent people were murdered everyday in gas chambers, but did nothing to stop it.

Hanning's defense lawyers had requested an acquittal, arguing that there were no evidence of Hanning's direct involvement in concrete action and he had not beaten or killed anyone. Endit