07 August 2006
Organizations representing victims of a 1944 Nazi massacre in Rome have rejected the release of the former SS officer Erich Priebke from jail, according to Italian media reports. Heirs of the 335 victims of the killing, in which Priebke was involved, rejected the request for clemency with only one person voting in favor. Earlier, Rome's Jewish community had also come out against clemency for Priebke. Seventy-five of the victims were Jews. Priebke, who is 93, orchestrated a revenge killing of Italian civilians after a partisan group had killed 33 German soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. After the war, he escaped to Argentina, and was only extradited to Italy in 1995 after he had publicly admitted the murders on ABC television. The Nazi war criminal is currently the oldest prisoner in Europe.
