Cologne authorities today released two former SS officers after five-and-a-half years of detention on suspicion of participation in the killings of prisoners at Mauthausen and other Nazi concentration camps.
The two, Karl Schilze, 61, and Anton Streitwieser, were released on the basis of the Convention on Human Rights after some 1,500 witnesses had been heard by the court here on the charges. The court said that a proper defense would be impossible if the two men remained in prison until all evidence had been gathered.
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