Lambertus Johannes Loyen, 58, was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a Roermond district court for war crimes which he committed as an SS camp guard at the Bobruisk forced labor camp for Polish Jews in 1942-43. The court found him guilty of having personally killed over 100 Jews in a most sadistic manner. The witnesses against him were four survivors now residing in Israel and one in West Germany.
The court rejected the point of the defense that it was not competent to try Loyen since he had committed his crimes outside Dutch territory and against non-Dutch citizens and that by voluntarily joining the SS he had lost Dutch citizenship. The defense has not yet decided whether to appeal to the Supreme Court.
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