Erich Priebkewas a wartime German officer in Italy. Now eighty years old, he was acquitted
on August 1, 1996 by an Italian court on charges relating to his minor role in the wartime Nazi shooting of hostages after communist partisans ambushed and killed a German army patrol in Rome. Priebke was put on trial again after a public outcry, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment; taking his twenty months’ prisoner of war internment into account, this would have resulted in his release later this year (1998).
In 1998 however he was put on trial by a military court for a third time, and given a life sentence. He has written to us: “Would you be willing to help