Suspected camp guard charged in murder of 430,000 Jews

BONN, Germany — A 90-year-old man has been charged with taking part in the murder of some 430,000 Jews at a Nazi-run death camp during World War II, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Samuel Kunz, who is suspected of having been a camp guard at Belzec in German-occupied Poland, was third on the list of Israel's Simon Wiesenthal Center, which works to prosecute individuals implicated in the Holocaust.

A case against Kunz was brought before a regional court in Bonn two weeks ago, which will now decide when and how to open proceedings against him.

Ephraim Zuroff, leading Nazi-hunter at the Wiesenthal Center, said that it was never too late to prosecute Nazi war criminals.

``It reflects recent changes in the German prosecution policy, which have significantly enlarged the number of suspects who will be brought to justice," he said.

He said Kunz was uncovered by the U.S. Justice Department, when his name came up in during investigations connected to the trial of another suspected Nazi war criminal, John Demjanjuk.

"The more research that is done, the more the Nazi criminals who can be found and brought to justice," Zuroff said. "It's not too late to bring war criminals to justice."

Kunz has been living in the Bonn area, and had worked in an office of the federal construction ministry as a handyman until his retirement.

Ukraine-born Demjanjuk is being tried by a court in Munich in connection with the deaths of 27,900 Jews while he was allegedly a guard at Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

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