Germany: Defense of former Nazi commander finishes
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Attorneys for an 88-year-old former Nazi commander were to wrap up their defense Tuesday, arguing that the prosecution relied on faulty testimony and had not proved its case.
Ladislav Niznansky faces a maximum life in prison if convicted of 164 counts of murder in three massacres in early 1945 after a failed uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet government.
A former Slovak army captain who at first supported the revolt, Niznansky changed sides after his capture and took charge of the Slovak section of a Nazi unit code-named Edelweiss that hunted resistance fighters and Jews.
He was convicted in the shootings and other killings and sentenced to death in absentia by what was communist Czechoslovakia in 1962. By then, he had moved to Germany. Now retired, he became a German citizen in 1996.
A verdict was expected later in December.