German
court officials say they aim to establish in coming months
whether Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim, known as "Doctor Death", has actually died as reported several years ago.
A regional court in the city of Baden-Baden said documents from Egypt, where
Heim was reported to have died in 1992, had been analysed,
and that it expected to release its findings as early as
the end of September.
Austrian-born Heim was also known
as the "Butcher of Mauthausen" for performing medical experiments on Nazi concentration camp prisoners.
In 1945 he was arrested by the US
military, but they let him go after two and a half years,
and he went on to work as a gynaecologist in Baden-Baden.
He worked in the picturesque spa town
for around 15 years but fled in 1962 as West German authorities
were about to arrest him.
In February 1992, German public television
channel ZDF and The New York Times reported that Heim had
died of bowel cancer in Egypt that year, citing his son and
acquaintances in Cairo.
But a report by Der Spiegel news weekly
several months later said investigators believed the reports
did not provide "any proof of his death" and were continuing to examine "every lead".
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem
also said it did not believe the story.
The court in the southwestern city
of Baden-Baden said it had received on Thursday initial results
from the analysis of documents from Egypt, which it had obtained
in the spring.
Further tests, including chemical
and biological ones, were still pending, the court said in
a written statement.
But it said it would decide "whether,
on the basis of the results of the evaluation until now,
the passing of the wanted person can be definitely established
and the process stopped".
No date for a decision could be given
yet, it stressed, adding it would not however be before the
end of September or early October. expatica.com
|