Aachen, Germany - Lawyers filed a motion Tuesday to abandon the war-crimes trial of Dutch-born Heinrich Boere, 88, in Germany, contending that a new European Union treaty makes the case invalid. Attorney Gordon Christiansen said the Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force on Tuesday, unified EU justice and meant nobody could be prosecuted a second time in a second country for the same crime.
Boere, a German national, was tried in absentia in the Netherlands in the late 1940s, but never served his life jail term because Germany does not extradite its own citizens. He has admitted in news interviews that he assassinated three people in 1944 for the Nazis.
The court in Aachen, near the Dutch border, halted the trial to consider the objection. The case is one of two big war-crimes trials in Germany. The other involves John Demjanjuk, 89, alleged to have served as a Nazi death camp guard.
Boere is alleged to have served in a death squad, code-named Feldmeijer, run by the SS Nazi army to liquidate suspected members of the Dutch resistance during the Second World War. The Germans occupied the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945.
Boere has not responded in court to the charges.
