Life sentence in Italy for ten former SS officers in massacre


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Saturday January 13, 2007

La Spezia- A military court in northern Italy Saturday sentenced ten one-time Nazi SS officers to life in prison for the 1944 Marzabotto massacre. The court in La Spezia found the ten German SS members guilty in absentia, and the men, now more than 80 years old, will likely never have to serve their sentence.

More than 800 people, including many women and children, were brutally murdered in the Emilia Romagna and near by regions in autumn 1944 in retaliation for attacks by partisan rebels.

It was one of the worst SS massacres on Italian soil during Germany's Third Reich under dictator Adolph Hitler, who had an alliance with Italy under dictator Benito Mussolini.

Seven others charged in the case were found not guilty, the news agency Ansa reported.

The court also ordered damages of 100 million euros (129 million dollars) to be paid to family survivors who have sued for compensation.

The massacre was ordered by SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Reder, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1951 in Bologna. He was released in 1985, and died in Vienna in 1991.

Germany's former president Johannes Rau apologized in 2002 in Marzabotto for the war crimes.

"When I think on these children and mothers, on the women and the entire families who were victims of this murder on that day, I am overcome with sadness and shame," he said.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency