19 October 2006
Federal authorities in the United States have released a former Nazi concentration camp guard from confinement after failing to find a country willing to take the 81-year-old man, who had been stripped of his US citizenship. In January, an appeals court had upheld a decision to revoke Johann Leprich's citizenship. In September, Leprich's lawyer asked a federal judge to order his client released, citing a 2001 US Supreme Court decision requiring the freeing of those still held for deportation six months after a removal order. The Justice Department said it released Leprich on Monday because Romania, Hungary and Germany refused to accept him, despite high-level meetings with officials from those countries, the "Detroit Free Press" reported on Wednesday. "What country is going to accept an 81-year-old man who is in declining health?" said Leprich's attorney, Joseph McGinness. His client was released to his wife and son, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said, adding that Leprich must report weekly to ICE and the agency will continue to seek his deportation. Leprich, an ethnic German born in Romania, joined the Nazi military organization Waffen SS in 1943 and served as a guard at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, court records say. About 119,000 people were killed at Mauthausen. After the war, Leprich emigrated to the United States and in 1958 became a US citizen. He fled to Canada in 1987, shortly before a federal judge moved to revoke his citizenship for hiding his Nazi party membership. Leprich was arrested in 2003 when authorities found him hiding behind a panel under the basement stairs at his family's home near Detroit.
