Sept. 9




GERMANY:

Nazi murder trial opens


In Mucnih, an 86-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect charged with
the killings of 164 Slovak villagers during World War II denied as his
trial opened Thursday that he was involved in the shootings of women or
children.

Ladislav Niznansky is accused of having headed the Slovak section of a
Nazi unit code-named Edelweiss, which hunted resistance fighters and Jews
after the Germans crushed an uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet
government in 1944.

He faces 164 counts of murder for allegedly taking part in the killings,
including giving the order to shoot 18 Jewish civilians.

Niznansky's lawyer, Steffen Ufer, argued in court that Niznansky was
under orders from Nazi superiors and not present when the bulk of the
shootings happened.

"He never gave an order to move against women and children, nor did he
personally lift his hand against such persons," Ufer said in an opening
statement.

Outside the courtroom, Niznansky flatly told reporters: "I am not
guilty."

Now a German citizen, Niznansky was arrested at his Munich home in January,
paving the way for what could be Germany's last Nazi war crimes trial. He
could face life in prison if convicted.

Niznansky testified he initially took part in the rebellion and switched
sides after being captured and a German officer threatened to have him
sent to a concentration camp.

Prosecutors say he issued orders for and participated in the shootings of
146 people in the villages of Ostry Grun and Klak in central Slovakia on
Jan. 21, 1945. Niznansky "ordered that no living soul be allowed to
escape and that anyone who tried to flee be shot," and personally shot at
least 20 people, according to the indictment.

Niznansky also is accused of ordering the shooting of 18 Jewish civilians
discovered hiding in underground bunkers at Ksina on February 7, 1945.

Many of the victims of the shootings, the youngest of them a 3-month-old
baby, were women and children.

"The aim of the operation was the total destruction of the villages and
the liquidation of all their inhabitants because there were partisans
there who were supported by the population," the indictment said.

His lawyer said Niznansky denies being at Ostry Grun and Klak at the time
of the killings.

Ufer also challenged the credibility of the prosecution's main witness,
who Ufer said had changed his story and fingered Niznansky in the Ostry
Grun and Klak.

Other survivors have said a German officer did the shooting, the lawyer
said. He said Niznansky was with his unit "in the hills above" the two
villages when the villagers were shot.

Niznansky is believed to have fled to Germany after a 1948 communist coup in
then-Czechoslovakia. He later worked for several decades at Radio Free
Europe, a U.S.-financed station in Munich that broadcast to the Eastern Bloc
during the Cold War.

A court in Czechoslovakia in 1962 convicted Niznansky of the village
shootings and other killings and sentenced him to death in absentia.

Munich prosecutors say they began investigating Niznansky in 2001 after
Slovakia's government approached them about the case.

German prosecutors reviewed archives and court documents in the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, and attended the questioning of witnesses as part
of their investigation.

(source: Associated Press)