An Italian prosecutor asked a military judge Thursday to sentence 10 former members of the Nazi SS to life in prison for their alleged role in a 1944 massacre in northern Italy, a defense lawyer said. Prosecutor Marco De Paolis made the request during closing arguments at the trial in La Spezia, a city on the country's west coast, said Luigi Trucco, a lawyer for one of the defendants. The defendants are being tried in absentia and are believed to be in Germany, he said.The next hearings were scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday when a prosecutor for an attached civil lawsuit and the defense lawyers will make their closing remarks, Trucco said. A verdict is expected to be handed down the following week, he said. In August 1944, about 300 SS troops surrounded the Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, which had been flooded with refugees, ostensibly to hunt for partisans. Instead they rounded up and shot villagers, according to survivors. Others were herded into basements and other enclosed spaces and killed with hand grenades. Historical documents are not clear on the precise number killed, but the most commonly cited number is 560 people.
The slaughter was one of the worst in a series of atrocities by Nazi troops in central and northern of Italy during World War II. Italian authorities began investigating the massacre a few years ago when officials found reports on the killings drawn up by Allied forces at the end of the war. Among those on trial is Gerhard Sommer, the officer suspected of giving the orders for the shooting. In 2002, Sommer told German public television ARD that he was a company commander in the division, but that he had "an absolutely pure conscience."
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