Suspected Nazi war criminal Siert Bruins, who served in Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi troops the Wafen-SS, or "Armed Protection Squadron" went on trial in Hagen, Germany Monday on charges of shooting and killing a Dutch resistance fighter at the end of World War II, Reuters reported.
While saying he was present at the murder of Aldert Klaas Dijkema, Bruins said another soldier shot and killed the man.
"I walked on the right of him and he was on the left and suddenly I heard the shots and someone fell," Bruins said in a televised interview.
Even as the Hagen court have already sentenced Bruins, who was born in Holland but acquired German citizenship while serving as a German security and body in the Netherlands during World War II, to seven years in jail in 1980 for being accessory to murdering two Jewish brothers, Monday's trial deals exclusively with the murder of the Dutch resistance man.
"The accused is alleged to have taken Mr. Dijkema on the orders of his superior ... in a car near to a factory," the court wrote in a statement. "There, the accused and his accomplice are alleged to have shot Mr. Dijkema four times."
"He was hit in the back of his head among other places and died immediately. Later on, the accused and his accomplice admitted that Mr. Dijkema was shot as he tried to flee."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has been spent decades rooting out surviving Nazi criminals, launched "Operations Last Chance II" last July in a final effort to find any remaining surviving Nazis, many of whom are in their 90s.
Nazi hunters are active throughout the world.
© 2023 Lawyer Herald All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Get the Most Popular Lawyerherald Stories in a Weekly Newsletter
Join the Discussion
