A Rotterdam district court imposed a 10-year prison sentence and a $50,000 fine today on millionaire art dealer Pieter Menten after he was found guilty, for the second time, of participation in the mass murders of Jews and others in Podhorodze village in Poland while serving with the Nazi SS during World War II.
Shortly after the sentence was pronounced Menten collapsed into a diabetic coma and was taken to the intensive care unit of a hospital at Bussum near Amsterdam. Menten, who suffers from diabetes, was not in court when the sentence was pronounced but heard about it on the radio at his home in Blaricum, near Bussum, where he was under house arrest. He was not obligated to attend the court session.
Menten’s second trial began in May. He had been convicted in on Amsterdam court in December, 1977 of the same crime but that verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court and subsequently a new trial was ordered. Menten, 81, had pleaded not guilty. The prosecution demanded a 20-year sentence but presiding Judge Pieter Schipper pronounced a 10-year term in view of Menten’s advanced age.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
