Auschwitz guard dies before jail term imposed

A 95-year-old former Auschwitz guard who was sentenced to jail last year for being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people, has died before his conviction became legally binding, his lawyer said yesterday.

Reinhold Hanning was convicted in Germany last June by a judge who called him a “willing and efficient henchman” in the Holocaust. His lawyer, Andreas Scharmer, said the verdict is not legally binding as appeals were still pending.

Thomas Walther, a lawyer for more than 20 joint plaintiffs, said: “If the judiciary had not been silent for decades, then there would not have been this disappointment.”