Jewish groups furious as convicted Nazi free to work

Jewish groups reacted angrily Wednesday to reports that Erich Priebke, a 93-year-old former SS officer found guilty of slaughtering hundreds of civilians in a World War II Nazi reprisal in Rome, would be allowed to go to work.

"This is absolutely ridiculous. Priebke is an unrepented Nazi who doesn't deserve any privileges or sympathy," said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish NGO named after the famous Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter.

The head of Rome's Jewish Community, Renzo Gattegna, noted that Priebke had already been granted house arrests because of his advanced age and that the decision sent out the wrong signals.

"This is clearly another act of leniency towards a man who showed no mercy in killing 335 innocent civilians and has shown no remorse since," Gattegna told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Lisa Billig, the Rome representative of the American Jewish Committee, said that while Priebke should have served his sentence in full, the decision would not make much of a difference or help "bring the victims back to life. "