Nazi triggerman dodges jail, ages in peace

A state court in Aachen ruled in 2007 that Boere could legally serve his sentence in Germany, but an appeals court in Cologne overturned the ruling months later, saying the 1949 conviction was invalid because Boere was unable to present a defense.

The case continues to stir Dutch public opinion. Last August, opposition lawmakers queried Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin who, in his reply, named "four Dutch war criminals still alive and in Germany who have not served a Dutch prison sentence." One of them was Boere.

It was after the Cologne decision that Maass' office, which is responsible for investigating Nazi war crimes for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, took up the case again.

Efraim Zuroff, Jerusalem-based director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Boere may not be a senior Nazi, but "he is certainly worthy of prosecution."

"The fact that Germany has spared killers like Boere ... is absolutely outrageous," he said.

Besteman, Boere's partner in the first killing, is still alive, living in the Netherlands after serving jail time for his wartime crimes, and Maass hopes to be able to call on him if the case goes to trial.

But it's a race against time as ex-Nazis die of old age. "We haven't had a lot of success in the past years," Maass conceded. "It's resolving itself biologically."

The bike shop owner's son, also named Teun de Groot, doesn't want to leave it to biology. He insists Boere should serve his life sentence, whatever that means nearly 59 years later.

"For him, life is two years. Ten years is life, five years is life," de Groot told The AP. "He's 86!"

De Groot, the oldest of five children, was 11 when his father was killed. The murder, he says, devastated his family. They sold the shop at a fraction of its value, his mother went to pieces, and the three older children were sent to live with relatives and in foster care.

He still has the wallet his father fumbled for in his doorway to show his visitors his ID papers. It is torn by a bullet.

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