94-year-old former Auschwitz guard charged

Suspect slapped with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder for serving as SS sergeant and medic at the death camp

This undated file image shows the main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I in Poland. (photo credit: AP)
This undated file image shows the main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I in Poland. (photo credit: AP)

BERLIN — German prosecutors have charged a 94-year-old man with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served in the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp.

Schwerin prosecutors’ spokesman Stefan Urbanek said Monday the suspect was an SS sergeant who served as a medic in Auschwitz in an SS hospital. In that role, Urbanek said the man helped the extermination camp function and could thus be charged as an accessory to the 1944 killings.

Urbanek wouldn’t release the suspect’s name in line with privacy laws.

The man is one of 30 former Auschwitz suspects against whom federal investigators recommended in 2013 that state prosecutors pursue charges under a new precedent in German law.

His attorney, Peter-Michael Diestel, told the Bild newspaper there’s no evidence of any “concrete criminal act” by his client.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.

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