A 96-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary who went on the run to avoid trial has finally appeared in court strapped to an ambulance wheelchair.
Irmgard Furchner, who has been dubbed the ‘secretary of evil’, was wheeled in by guards with a shawl, face mask and large sunglasses covering her face.
She is standing trial for complicity in the murder of more than 10,000 people at Stutthof camp in Nazi-occupied Poland between 1943 and 1945.
She was just 18 when she started work at the camp on the Baltic coast, and is the first woman to stand trial in decades over crimes connected to the Third Reich.
An arrest warrant was issued after Furchner fled her retirement home on September 30 and headed to a metro station as her trial was set to begin in the northern town of Itzehoe.
The pensioner managed to evade police for several hours before being apprehended in the nearby city of Hamburg and temporarily held in custody by authorities.
Furchner was released five days later ‘under the condition of precautionary measures’, said court spokeswoman Frederike Milhoffer, adding that it was ‘assured that she (Furchner) will appear at the next appointment’.
According to media reports, the accused has been fitted with an electronic tag to monitor her whereabouts.
Sitting in court today, Irmgard scratched her nose, tapped her fingers on her lip and looked around the court and gallery as the gruesome indictment was read out.
Click here to read more.
Source: Daily Mail
BCNN1 WP 