(Reuters) - A Hungarian court on Thursday began the trial of Sandor Kepiro, 97, accused over the massacre of more than a thousand people in the Serb city of Novi Sad during World War Two.

Kepiro, a Hungarian, served as a gendarme during the war, when parts of Serbia were occupied by troops from Hungary, then allied with Nazi Germany.

More than a thousand civilians -- Serbs, Jews and Roma -- were killed in the 1942 Novi Sad massacre, ordered in retaliation for attacks by partisans.

The prosecution said Kepiro was involved in a series of events in which people were rounded up and sent to their deaths before a firing squad. Kepiro was also charged with being a member of a squad that murdered people in their homes.

He has denied that he committed murders or knew about them at the time.

"I have never been a murderer," Kepiro said before the trial. "The accusations against me are based on a series of lies. I was there in the raid, but all we did was ask for papers. The murders happened in a completely separate location, by the Danube. I wasn't anywhere near them.

"I am here on trial, in the last years of my life, completely innocent."

The trial continues on Friday and the court is expected to issue a ruling on May 19.

Kepiro lived in Argentina from 1948 to 1996. He was spotted in 2006 in Budapest by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The center welcomed the trial.

"This is one of the few people alive today who had command responsibility in a very serious, terrible crime," said the center's Efraim Zuroff.

reuters.com