Ex-SS Agent, 92, Tried for Murder in Germany

Siert Bruins accused of shooting resistance fighter
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 2, 2013 12:33 PM CDT
Ex-SS Agent, 92, Tried for Murder in Germany
Siert Bruins sits in a court in Hagen, Germany, Monday, Sept. 2, 2013.   (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The murder trial of a 92-year-old ex-SS member—one of the final such trials, the BBC notes—has begun in Germany. Siert Bruins, a German born in the Netherlands, allegedly killed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944. Prosecutors say Bruins drove captured fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema to a deserted area, told him to "go take a leak," and shot him four times in the back.

Bruins has said he was marching Dijkema at the time of the shooting. If convicted, Bruins could see life in prison, the Independent reports. He was earlier imprisoned for seven years after a 1980 sentencing in the killing of two Jewish brothers. Bruins is one of the last Nazi war criminal suspects Germany has detained; the country has its sights on 40 Auschwitz guards. (More Siert Bruins stories.)

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