A local court in Germany has sentenced a 101-year-old Nazi concentration camp guard to five years jail term for complicity in the murders of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin.
On Tuesday, the court found Josef Schütz, the oldest person on trial for war crimes connected to the Holocaust in October, guilty as an accessory in the deaths of more than 3,500 people.
Aided by his lawyer, Schutz denied any liability for the deaths.
However, the prosecutors argued that Schütz “knowingly and willingly” enabled the systematic killings through his actions as a guard.
The prosecutors said Schütz was 21 years old when he aided in the firing squad execution of Soviet war prisoners in 1942.
The prosecutors added that he also aided in the murder of prisoners gassed with Zyklon B.
According to reports, more than 200,000 prisoners, including Jews, gays, and political prisoners, were reportedly housed at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945.
Schütz was stationed there for the final three years of the camp’s existence in the Brandenburg town of Oranienburg.
Schutz’s lawyers are set to appeal the verdict due to their client’s age.
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