A verdict in the second trial of alleged Nazi war criminal Pieter Menten is expected to be rendered by the Rotterdam district court at the end of this month, despite delaying tactics employed by Menten’s defense attorney, Eduard Boehl. This appeared likely when it was announced that both Boehl and Public Prosecutor Leo Meyers will begin their summations this week.
The trial began last month but the court has met only twice a week. it agreed to a demand by the defense to send an expert, Slavonic languages Prof. Willem Veder, to Moscow to study Soviet archives for the period in 1941 when Menten is alleged to have committed the mass murders of Jews and others in Pohorodze village in Poland. The defense contends that local villagers interrogated by Soviet authorities after the liberation of the region in 1944, did not name Menten among the war criminals they accused of atrocities. Prof. Veder is expected to return here tomorrow. The final witnesses for the defense testified last Thursday.
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