A German court on Friday declined to put a 95-year-old man accused of being a Nazi concentration camp guard on trial, citing lack of evidence.
The suspect, identified only as Hans Werner H. due to privacy laws, was accused in October of serving as an SS guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in northern Austria from October 1944 to May 1945, The Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors say 36,233 people were killed at the camp while he served as a guard. He is not charged in connection with a specific death but more than 36,000 counts of accessory of to murder.
{mosads}The court declined to proceed to trial over concerns there was not enough evidence to support the charges. The suspect admitted to being a member of the SS but said he never went to the camp.
He did serve as a guard at a satellite camp and an armaments factory in Linz which was connected to Mauthausen, AP noted.
The suspect provided the court with documents which stated he was serving in combat with his battalion during the timeline in question, contradicting documents from prosecutors which list him as an SS Rottenfuehrer — equivalent to a corporal — but not a guard.
More than 95,000 people, including 14,000 Jews, are believed to have been executed at the Mauthausen camp alone, some of the millions who died during the years of the Holocaust in German-occupied Europe.
While the trial of Hans Werner H. will not proceed given lack of evidence, AP noted that several other trials of alleged Nazi guards have been called off given the significant ages of the suspects.
A Frankfurt court ruled on Thursday that a 97-year-old accused guard at the Majdanek death camp was too sick for court.
A 94-year-old former SS guard at the Stutthof concentration camp collapsed during trial in Muenster last week and was hospitalized for heart and kidney issues, the outlet noted.
The case against the alleged Nazi camp guard comes several months after the U.S. deported Jakiw Palij, a 95-year-old man who was believed to be the last suspect of Nazi war crimes living in the U.S.