Former Nazi SS Guard, 89, Sentenced to Life in Prison

A German court convicted an 89-year-old former Nazi SS guard Wednesday of beating a Jewish inmate to death during World War II and sentenced him to life in prison in one of the country's last trials for Nazi crimes.

Anton Malloth, who was a guard at the Theresienstadt fortress in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of another prisoner who hid a cauliflower under his jacket during forced harvest work in 1943.

"He tortured, humiliated and killed people because he considered them subhumans who had no right to live," Presiding Judge Juergen Hanreich said in his verdict. He said Malloth "lived out his profound hate in a sadistic way."

Malloth, who has denied all the charges, showed no emotion as the verdict was read after a five-week trial at the Munich prison where he has been held since last year.

The defendant, described as one of the most brutal Theresienstadt guards, followed the trial silently in a wheelchair, occasionally peering over at the judges and witnesses.

Prosecutors had wanted a life sentence, saying that would do the victims justice and would serve as a warning to Germany's increasingly violent neo-Nazis.

The murder charge was based on a trial witness who testified that Malloth in 1944 hit the Jewish prisoner over the head with a stick about 20 times, then kicked him in the chest and head until he died because he had failed to report to Malloth.

His lawyer had called for acquittal, saying the evidence was inconclusive. He said Wednesday he may appeal.

Paul Spiegel, leader of Germany's Jewish community, welcomed the judgment as a sign of German toughness on Nazism.

Born in 1912 in Austria, Malloth took Italian citizenship after World War I and became a German in 1939 after Germany annexed Austria so he could join the SS.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia by a Czechoslovak court in 1948 for hundreds of killings at Theresienstadt.

But Malloth had fled to Italy and reclaimed his Italian citizenship. Rome revoked it after finding he lied about his SS past, and he was deported in 1988 to Germany because he still had German papers.

The SS, short for Schutzstaffel, was the dreaded paramilitary unit of the Nazi party. It was used as a special police force and was involved in some of the worst crimes committed in territory under Nazi control during World War II.

Since World War II, German authorities have investigated some 107,000 people for Nazi war crimes. Nearly 6,500 were convicted, though most received relatively short jail sentences. About 20 investigations are pending, but it's unclear whether any suspects will still be brought to trial.








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