Italian prosecutor seeks life sentences in Nazi trial

MILAN - An Italian prosecutor has asked a military judge to send 10 former German soldiers to prison for the rest of their lives over the massacre of 560 men, women and children in a Tuscan mountain village in 1944.

Prosecutor Marco De Paolis told the court in the port city of La Spezia that there were "numerous elements" to prove the men, now in their 80s and living in Germany, had "precise roles" in one of Italy's worst civilan massacres during World War 2.

The men, accused of aggravated homicide, are not expected to travel to Italy for the verdict, due on June 22, officials at the military tribunal said.

The 10 former soldiers on trial over the Sant'Anna killings are unlikely to be extradited or to serve a sentence because of their advanced age.

The shooting in Sant'Anna di Stazzema, in the early hours of August 12, 1944, was one of many in the region as German troops retreated to the so-called "Gothic Line" of defence that cut across Italy from La Spezia to the Adriatic.

But they only came to light a decade ago when a filing cabinet full of witness statements was found in a Rome basement.

According to recent studies, the Allied forces had initially wanted to try the Nazi soldiers after the war, but the plans were shelved in 1947. By the late 1940s only a dozen court martial proceedings were closed.

The "cabinet of shame" was not found until the 1990s and prosecutors in La Spezia have since been fighting time to bring suspects to trial.

Some of the few people who survived the massacre, most of whom were young children at the time, were present in the court on Thursday.

- REUTERS