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Spain prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for alleged Nazis

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A prosecutor from the Spanish National Court has asked that arrest warrants be issued for three accused Nazi prison guards currently living in the US. Prosecutor Pedro Martinez Torrijos said that Johann Leprich, Anton Tittjung and Josias Kumpf are accomplices to genocide owing to their roles guarding prisoners at the Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, and Flossenburg camps during World War II. Torrijos said that Judge Ismael Moreno could hear the case under Spain's universal jurisdiction doctrine, which gives Spain jurisdiction over foreign torture, terrorism, and war crimes only if the case is not subject to the legal system of the country involved. Torrijos did not ask for a warrant for a fourth suspect, John Demjanjuk, who is currently awaiting trial as an accessory to murder in Germany for his involvement at the Sobibor camp. The suit was initiated last June by the rights group Equipo Nizkor, which petitioned Spain's National Court to press charges against the four accused guards. Demjanjuk, 89, has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. He was deported to Germany earlier this month, after the US Supreme Court denied his stay of deportation.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on May 29, 2009 (boomark / email).