Siert Bruins will stand trial in Hagen Westphalia Oct. 29 on charges of war crimes committed when he was a Dutch member of the Nazi SD in April, 1945. According to the charges, on the eve of the liberation of northeastern Holland, Bruins and a German associate, August Neuhaeuser, executed two Jewish brothers surnamed Sleutelberg who they discovered by chance in their hiding place.
Bruins was sentenced. to death in absentia by a Dutch special tribunal in April 1949. He managed to escape across the border to Germany in the early post-war days. He has lived there ever since under the name of Siegfried Bruns and acquired West German nationality.
Bruins was exposed by the efforts of two Dutch journalists in July 1978. One of the difficulties at the forthcoming trial is whether Bruins is actually now a citizen of West Germany. He may have acquired citizenship on false pretenses. Holland has asked for his extradition but its request has been provisionally rejected because his nationality is uncertain.
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