IT seems increasingly unlikely that the former SS captain, Erich Priebke, will be extradited from Italy to Germany to answer charges in connection with his involvement in Italy's worst war time atrocity, the massacre of 335 civilians at the Ardeatine Caves near Rome in March 1944.
Despite Priebke's own confession that he had killed two of the Ardeatine victims, a Rome military tribunal last Thursday surprisingly freed him at the end of a three month trial.
It found him guilty of multiple homicide but ruled he could not be convicted because of "extenuating circumstances" and a 50 year statute of limitations.
Priebke's next court appearance, if at all, will be in an Italian court. His fate would appear to hang on the outcome of an appeal lodged against an earlier military appeal court decision to reject the prosecution's request that the three judges presiding over the Priebke case be dismissed.
Both the prosecution and lawyers representing the victims' families had moved for the dismissal of the judges during the trial, primarily because of an alleged remark made by the presiding judge before the trial in which he suggested Priebke should be freed.