THE RULING in the trial of war criminal Erich Priebke set off storms of protest across Europe and the US yesterday and raised questions about the future conduct of war crimes trials 51 years after the Holocaust, writes Ian Traynor in Bonn.
Observers noted the unfortunate timing of the Italian verdict. It came in the midst of the first international war crimes trial since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, the current trial in The Hague of Dusan Tadic for alleged war crimes in former Yugoslavia.
For many the most disturbing aspect of the Priebke case was the judges' acceptance of the "following orders" defence. It was a ruling that flew in the face of the case history of Nazi war crimes trials.
"Even if an order is given, the command to kill a child is clearly inhuman, criminal and has nothing to do with war," said Mr Michel Friedmann, a leading German Jew and lawyer. "If a court effectively approves such a killing, what are we supposed to do about kids being massacred in Yugoslavia?"
Simon Wiesenthal, the Vienna based veteran Nazi hunter, described the Italian verdict as "problematic", while Ignatz Bubis, the leader of Germany's Jewish community, said the Italian court had dealt a punch in the face to the victims".
No alleged war criminals have yet been tried in Britain although the first such trial, of Szy moo Serafinowicz (85), is expected to go ahead next January. He is accused of murdering Jews in German occupied Belarus during the second World War.
Following the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals staged by the victors over the vanquished at the end of the war, most countries have been reluctant to pursue war criminals vigorously.
The wave of German prosecutions in the 1950s and 1960s are generally seen to have been less than comprehensive.
The French only started to try to deal with the war criminals in their midst in the 1980s with the trial of Klaus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyons".
Britain only last year passed the legislation enabling it to prosecute war criminals now resident in Britain, although few trials are likely to follow.
But while campaigners and legal experts deplored the Italian verdict on moral grounds, they generally agreed that the legal impact of the ruling would be minimal, except in Italy itself.
They also pointed out that unlike in Germany or most other countries, the Italians had chosen to bring the case before a military rather than a criminal court.
A formal extradition request from the Germans is expected in the coming days. But several legal hurdles need to be surmounted before the request can be regarded as valid and even then, German justice sources admit, they may not be able to put the elderly former Nazi on trial.
German sources said yesterday that they were not sure whether or not Priebke had been acquitted by the Italian court. The "guilty but free" verdict possibly meant he had not been acquitted, in which case he could still be tried in Germany.
Lawyer Michel Friedmann said the issue of Nazi war crimes was as topical and urgent as over and that talk of letting bygones be bygones was misplaced.
"That's why we've just set up an international tribunal on Yugoslavia in The Hague. We're not talking about the past. This verdict is fatal for today and tomorrow because ethically it excuses the murder of civilians."