A 86-year-old former commander of a Nazi special forces unit faces court in the German city of Munich. He is charged with murdering 164 people in Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II. With suspects and potential witnesses dying of old age, the trial of Ladislav Niznanksy, who led the so-called "Edelweiss" unit which hunted down and killed Slovak resistance fighters, may be one of the last of its kind. Niznansky is accused of taking part in a massacre in 1945 in which 146 people in two villages in what is now Slovakia were murdered. He is also suspected of later ordering the execution of 18 Jews in another village, most of whom were women and children. Despite the passing of 60 years, 24 witnesses, some of them survivors, have been located and will testify against the leader of a unit prosecutors say was known for the "special treacherousness and brutality" of its operations.
Niznansky, who was born in Czechoslovakia but has German citizenship, is said to have ordered that no-one should be allowed to escape. He allegedly shot dead 20 of the victims himself.
