(8 Jan 2014) A German court has shelved the case against a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi SS, saying there are too many gaps in the evidence some 70 years later to deliver a verdict.
Dutch-born Siert Bruins, now a German citizen, went on trial in September in the western city of Hagen on charges that he executed a resistance fighter in the northern Netherlands in 1944.
The killing happened at a time when Allied forces had entered the Netherlands and were pushing back the occupying German troops.
"It is not a conviction nor do we have an acquittal, it is a closing of procedures today," explained the Hagen Court spokesperson," Jan Schulte.
Schulte added that while the court the crime of manslaughter was committed, it was "statute-barred which means he can no longer be convicted."
Another reason was the time that had elapsed.
The dpa news agency reported that the court shelved the case instead of delivering a verdict, saying too much evidence was missing and it was no longer possible to question witnesses in many cases.
Bruins' lawyer argued his client didn't know of plans to kill the resistance fighter, Aldert Klaas Dijkema and that another now-deceased SS man pulled the trigger.


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