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Italy's highest court has confirmed life sentences for three former Nazi SS officers for their role in the murder of 560 Tuscan villagers in World War II.
The verdict on the three former German officers, all in their 80s, is largely symbolic, as they are unlikely to be extradited from their homeland.
But survivors said justice had been done. "After 63 years, we could not be happier," survivor Mauro Pieri said, tears in his eyes. Pieri was 12 during the massacre in which his mother and brothers died. At dawn on August 12, 1944, soldiers of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a paramilitary wing of the Nazi party, surrounded the stone houses of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, forcing mostly women and children on to the street where they were shot.
The first trial for the killings ended in 2005 and sentenced 10 former Nazi officers to life in jail, including the three for which the verdict was confirmed this week - Gerhard Sommer, Georg Rauch and Karl Gropler.
- Reuters
