Authorities in Bavaria, southern Germany, said Friday there was little chance of new proceedings against an SS hitman who has lived as a free man in Germany since escaping from a Dutch prison in 1952.  

A spokesman for the Bavarian justice ministry, which is responsible for the case, said there was only a “theoretical” chance of reopening investigations into Klaas Carel Faber, 88, convicted in the Netherlands of murdering 22 Jews.  

Israel’s Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman had written to German counterpart Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger to see if the case can be re-examined.  

Public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk this month cited the state’s justice ministry as saying it needed “new facts not known until now” before the Dutch verdict could be enforced.  

Faber, who is high on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of wanted Nazis, was given German citizenship for serving in the SS. Several attempts to extradite him have failed.  

He served in a special SS unit in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands which killed Dutch civilians deemed as “anti-German” as reprisals for resistance attacks.  

He was sentenced to death in the Netherlands, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment.  

In March this year, another member of this unit who also escaped to Germany, Heinrich Boere, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court. His lawyers had said they were planning an appeal and Boere, 88, remains free.

(Source: EJP / AFP)