A group of former resistance members in the northeastern province of Groningen in The Netherlands have announced that they have discovered the whereabouts of seven Dutch war criminals in West Germany where they have been hiding since the end of World War II.
The main war criminal among them is Albert Zuuring, 62, who as a “Rottenfuehrer” of the SS was co-responsible for killing 17 Dutch men, women and children near the town of Breda in 1944. He was sentenced in absentia to lifelong imprisonment by a Dutch de-Nazification court in 1947.
Dutch Public Prosecutor Louis de Beaufort, who has been placed in charge of coordinating the investigation of the whereabouts of more than 300 Dutch war criminals still missing, has stated that the whereabouts of the seven war criminals have been known to him for some time and he has had contacts with the West German authorities about them.
The main problem, however, is not locating them but extraditing them. If some of the seven war criminals have meanwhile acquired West German citizenship, as they claim, this must be verified. for the time being, however, they cannot be extradited. Some of them were sentenced in Holland solely for collaborating with the Nazis. According to West German law, this is not a basis for extradition. According to de Beoufort, the disclosure by the Groningen group may make his work more difficult.
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