SS Killer Protected By German Govt.

[HansMustermann]

As I understand that Germany did sign those international conventions prior to doing that stuff, it would seem to me like yes, the Nuremberg trials were ok.

 

[Beerina]

That wording may, IMHO, give enough justification for renouncing his citizenship, or for that matter, all German citizenships obtained that way. However, the German justice system has never accepted the verdicts of Nuremberg.

It's ironic that what the German government thinks, in this case, is irrelevant, given the trials were forced by, oh, I don't know, the rest of the freakin' world.

I heartily encourage continued international embarrassment and shaming, with the point being to teach future leaders not to do this sort of thing.

 

[Beerina]

Let's take a less passionate subject. Suppose a German is caught in Thailand with possession of drugs, gets convicted and does time. However, he manages to escape and goes back to Germany. Do you think he should do the rest of his time?

To be more accurate, suppose a German citizen killed a bunch of people, then fled to Germany. Should he be sent back to do the rest of his time?

 

[HansMustermann]

Supposing that the Thai (or Dutch in the case of the guy in the topic) authorities do hand over all the relevant evidence against him, I don't see why he can't be tried in Germany. It's not like we make a habit of letting murderers run around loose. But conversely if they want to play hardball, I don't see why we'd extradite anyone (citizen or not) based on just some unsupported claim that they must have some good reason to want him there.

It's not just Germany, but also the USA, UK, France, and everyone else who doesn't just hand over people to everyone who asks for them, but asks a judge to decide.

The German authorities did start a trial of the six fugitives, but they got basically thrown out of court. One side basically says that the Netherlands took the hardline that they just want extradition, and never supplied much evidence to the German courts. (Wouldn't exactly blame them for not trusting Germany so soon after the war, though. But also wouldn't blame a judge who had to decide based strictly on available evidence.) The other side says that Germany was protecting war criminals. After so much time, in effect nobody can tell for sure either way.

As DDT remarks the only evidence in the Düsseldorf trial was for the defendants. In that case, no judge in the world could decide otherwise. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all the other newfangled stuff that justice is based on in the meantime.

Why the evidence from the Netherlands was missing, now that's a good question and would probably shed more light on the situation than all the finger pointing and "solutions" boiling down to abolishing the rule of the law.

 

[MortFurd]

AFAIK, Faber has never been tried in Germany. You may be confusing him with Bikker, who got away by fainting in court and thus being "unfit for trial". I'm incredulous, to say the least, and a couple too many war criminals have gotten away with that. Anyway, Bikker wasn't found "not guilty" either.

The German justice system has been far too long reluctant to prosecute these people. It's good to see they've changed that in the last ten years, but it's a bit late now. I hope no-one gets the idea to even think about parole. They've already had 65 years of parole, so to say.

I know you can't read it, but this link says that Faber was tried. Sorry, it's in German. I couldn't find anything in English.

The tone of the article is also on the lines of "how can we let him go free?" They come to the same conclusion that many here have reached - the laws being what they are, there's not really any good way to legally send him back to prison. They also do wonder how he can sleep at night, which makes clear that the author at least is convinced that Faber is guilty.

I would say that the best starting point would be to get the previous trial in Germany declared invalid, or at least to attack it first. Since he was cleared in that trial, and Germany also has laws against double jeopardy (just liket h US does,) he can't be tried for the same crime again. Get the trial declared null, and then you can try him again.

 

[MortFurd]

To be more accurate, suppose a German citizen killed a bunch of people, then fled to Germany. Should he be sent back to do the rest of his time?

Germany has extradition agreements with a lot of countries. Since Germany doesn't have capital punishment, however, they don't allow extradition if the conviction in the foreign country could result in a death sentence. In those cases, the government offers to try the accused in Germany (by Germany laws and for punishment by German standards.) In other cases, they allow the accused to be extradited and tried in the foreign country. The German citizen then has to accept whatever punishment that country gives him.

 

[Rasmus]

I know you can't read it, but this link says that Faber was tried.

I interpret that differently.

The attorney of the state attempted to prosecute the case, but the case was ruled not permissable, because the court thought there was not enough evidence to make a good case.

Later, a different court refused to return him to the netherlands because of the earlier court's descision.

The first didn't rule him guilty or not; the second is based on the fact that there was not enough evidence to even go to court.