Court: Harsher sentences for convicted war criminals

ROME, March 8 (JTA) — In a stunning revision of earlier verdicts, a military appeals court in Rome has sentenced two former Nazi SS officers to life for their part in Italy’s worst World War II massacre. Relatives of victims killed during the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre burst into applause Saturday as former SS Capt. Erich Priebke and Maj. Karl Hass were sentenced to life imprisonment. Prosecutors said Priebke would be held under house arrest, while Hass would remain free pending an expected appeal to Italy’s highest court. Priebke was also quoted by Italian Television as saying he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The new sentences are just the latest acts in a legal drama that began when Priebke was discovered living in Argentina in 1994 and extradited to Italy 18 months later. A military court convicted Priebke in 1996 of having participated in the massacre, but did not sentence him to any jail time. After a public outcry, the verdict was annulled and a new trial ordered. Priebke, 84, then received a 15-year sentence last year for his role in the massacre, which killed 335 men and boys, about 75 of then Jews. This sentence was reduced to five years because of extenuating circumstances — and because of time already served, Priebke faced less than a year in jail. He had launched his appeal largely to clear his name. Prosecutors also appealed to try to get a harsher sentence against Priebke. At last year’s trial, Hass, who was a prosecution witness in the first trial, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months for his role in the massacre, but was set free immediately due to extenuating circumstances. Before the verdict was announced, Priebke read a 50-minute statement claiming he was being prosecuted as a symbol “of all the evils” of World War II. “I have been chosen to keep the memory of all the evils of that time alive,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter who Erich Priebke is and what he has done. It only matters what he represents. “Even Argentina, to which I gave 50 years of my life, has issued an expulsion order and doesn’t want me any more. Even Germany, where I was born, took away my passport and now wants to put me on trial for the things that it ordered me do 50 years ago,” he said.