An 86-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect denied that he was responsible for killing 164 Slovak villagers during World War II as his murder trial opened Thursday, arguing that he was acting under orders from German superiors. Ladislav Niznansky is accused of heading the Slovak section of a Nazi unit named "Edelweiss" that hunted resistance fighters and Jews after the Germans had crushed an uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet regime during World War II. The prosecutor in the Munich case charges that Niznansky took part in three massacres of Slovak civilians, mostly women and children, and personally shot at least 20 people in the village of Ostry Grun on 21 January 1945 – killings meant to punish civilian support for partisan fighters. Niznansky had ordered that "no living soul be allowed to escape" from Ostry Grun and the nearby village of Klak, the prosecutor said. Two weeks later, Niznansky allegedly formed a shooting squad to kill 18 Jewish civilians discovered hiding in underground bunkers at Ksina. Defense lawyer Steffen Ufer argues that Niznansky, now a German citizen, was acting under orders from the Nazi SS and was not present when the bulk of the shootings happened.