Former Nazi accused of prisoner massacre

The first witness in the trial of a former Nazi SS officer charged with ordering a massacre of Italian prisoners in 1944 described yesterday how the victims who survived a firing squad were shot again to make sure they died.

Karl Heinz Gunther, 80, testified that he was present at the shooting, but said he had trouble remembering details.

The defendant, Friedrich Engel, 93, is charged with ordering the shooting of 59 prisoners in the Turchino Pass outside Genoa in retaliation for an attack on a cinema that killed five German soldiers and injured 15.

Mr Engel has admitted he was at the site of the killings but said that they were ordered by Nazi naval officers. He insists that his department was responsible only for selecting which prisoners would be shot.

Mr Gunther, a former German soldier, confirmed earlier statements by Mr Engel that the victims fell into a grave on top of one another as they were shot. "Then a guy went in and shot those who weren't already dead," Mr Gunther said, adding that the man was not a member of the navy.

A second witness, Otto Reinhardt, who was in the German navy, told the court he believed a naval lieutenant commander had been in close contact with Mr Engel's command regarding a shooting of Italian captives, but that he did not know who had ordered it.

The trial opened earlier this month after a German television documentary drew attention to Mr Engel, who lives in Hamburg.

An Italian military court in Turin tried and convicted Mr Engel in absentia in 1999, sentencing him to life in prison.

Germany does not extradite citizens for crimes committed abroad. A verdict is not expected before June.