Italy: Nazi officer sentenced to life for massacre
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
An Italian military appeals court sentenced a former Nazi SS officer to life in prison for ordering the execution of dozens of people hiding in a monastery that sheltered Jews during World War II, a defense lawyer said Friday.
The court in Rome sentenced 86-year-old Hermann Langer on Thursday for ordering the massacre of about 60 people at the monastery in Farneta, Tuscany, in September 1944, the man's lawyer, Irma Conti, said.
Children and elderly people were among those killed, and their bodies were dumped in a mass grave.
Langer had been cleared by another military court last year, but prosecutors in the case had appealed the ruling, Conti said.
The court has not yet released the reasons behind the ruling, and Langer has not yet decided whether to appeal, she said.
Langer, who lives in Germany, was tried in absentia.