NAZI ON TRIAL: Ex-SS Member, 92, Charged With Wartime Execution Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial Monday in Hagen on charges that he shot in the back and killed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944, at the end of World War Two. Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, volunteered for the SS after the Nazis conquered the Netherlands in 1941. Bruins served as a member of the Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police, in a unit looking for resistance fighters and Jews. No pleas are made in the German legal system, and Bruins made no statement Monday about the accusations against him. His attorney said Bruins would answer questions during the trial but not about the charges. "Our tactic will definitely be to keep silent with regard to the charges," attorney Klaus-Peter Kniffka said ahead of the trial. Despite his advanced age, Bruins was found medically fit to stand trial, though Kniffka said the stress of the proceedings against him has weakened him. Bruins, who already served time in prison in the 1980s for his role in the slaying of two Dutch Jews, is accused of killing resistance fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944 in the town of Appingedam, near the German border in the northern Netherlands. If convicted, he faces a possible life sentence. ~ FOX News
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:20:05 +0000
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