Release of Nazi war criminal angers Romans

A court ruling that a 93-year-old Nazi war criminal can leave house arrest every day to work has angered Italians and Jewish groups.

Former SS Captain Erich Priebke was jailed for life by a military court for the massacre of 335 men and boys at the Ardeatine Caves near Rome during the Second World War. The killings were in reprisal for a partisan attack on Germans. He was extradited to Italy in 1995 from Argentina, where he fled after the war.

Mr. Priebke is allowed to serve his time under house arrest for health reasons, in a Rome flat lent by a lawyer who campaigned for his freedom. A military court ruled he can also work at the office of the lawyer, who told reporters that Priebke would begin work next Monday using his knowledge of German, Spanish, English and French to do translations and work as a clerk.

The ruling lets him go to the office "every day, freely" and "go out to satisfy, at nearby places and for the time strictly necessary, the indispensable necessities of life" — meaning he can pop out for lunch.

Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni reacted by expressing his solidarity with "all the victims of Nazi fascist barbarianism, their families and the Jewish community".

"Rome cannot forget," he said.

Nazi hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said the ruling "insults the family and friends of those murdered by Mr. Priebke and his cohorts" and was "based on a totally false assumption that, as an elderly person, Mr. Priebke deserves a measure of sympathy".

The president of Rome's ancient Jewish community, Leone Paserman, questioned why military tribunals believed Mr. Priebke was too old to be kept in a prison, but not too old to work.

"They should abolish life sentences if not even those who have committed crimes against humanity have to serve them," he said.

Politicians from the ruling centre-left alliance called for the city of Rome to stage a protest. Lawyer Paolo Giachini, who has given Mr. Priebke a home and now a job, defended the decision to grant him privileges, saying to Reuters: "All prisoners are equal and they deserve to be treated equally. We live in a state of law".

But in Rome's historic Jewish Ghetto, home to many of the Ardeatine Caves victims, banners appeared saying "Priebke Assassin" and "We don't forgive our killers."

Marco di Porto, whose grandfather died in the massacre, said real justice for Mr. Priebke "would be to treat him like his colleagues who were condemned in the Nuremberg trial in 1947."

Mr. Priebke admitted he participated in the massacre but said he was obeying orders on pain of death. In Argentina, he lived for half a century as a schoolmaster in the Andean town Bariloche.

Globe and Mail