Sunday, May 16, 2010

Membunuh 3 Penduduk Sipil Belanda Tahun 1944, Tahun 2010 Bekas Perwira Nazi Dihukum Seumur Hidup

24 Maret 2010

PENGADILAN Jerman telah memvonis seorang bekas perwira Waffen SS, Heinrich Boere, dengan hukuman penjara seumur hidup. Boere, 88, dinyatakan terbukti membunuh tiga warga sipil Belanda pada 1944. Vonis itu mengakhiri upaya pihak Belanda selama 60 tahun untuk membawa mantan perwira Jerman itu ke pengadilan.

Di persidangan yang dimulai sejak Oktober, Boere mengaku pernah membunuh seorang pemilik toko sepeda, seorang ahli farmasi, dan seorang warga sipil lain. Ini dilakukannya sebagai anggota kelompok pembunuh Silbertanne, satu unit sukarelawan SS di Belanda yang membunuh banyak warga Belanda lainnya.

Boere mengaku tidak memiliki pilihan lain dan harus mengikuti perintah untuk membunuh. "Saya hanya tentara. Kalau tidak melaksanakan perintah, saya akan melanggar janji prajurit dan akan bunuh diri," ujar Boere dalam sebuah kesaksian Desember lalu. Namun jaksa berargumen bahwa Boere secara sukarela menjadi anggota fanatik Waffen SS. Ini terjadi tak lama setelah Nazi menguasai kota tempat tinggalnya, Maasrricht, serta keseluruhan wilayah Belanda pada 1940.

Referensi: http://bataviase.co.id/node/142631

Former Nazi Hitman Convicted of Dutch Murders

 

 Former Nazi Hitman Convicted of Dutch Murders

 

(March 23) -- A German court has sentenced an 88-year-old former Nazi hitman to life in prison for murdering three Dutch civilians during World War II. Heinrich Boere is No. 6 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazis. He was part of the "Silbertanne" death squad -- a unit of largely Dutch SS volunteers tasked with killing their countrymen. His trial, which began in October, capped more than six decades of efforts to bring him to justice in what's probably one of the last war crimes trials of surviving former Nazis. 

The court in Aachen this morning handed down the maximum sentence, life in prison, 66 years after Boere's crimes took place. The former Waffen SS member admitted to killing a bicycle shop owner, a pharmacist and a member of the resistance movement in the Netherlands in 1944, but said he had no choice but to comply with his superiors' orders. "As a simple soldier, I learned to carry out orders," Boere testified in December. "And I knew that if I didn't carry out my orders I would be breaking my oath and would be shot myself." 

Prosecutors said Boere was a willing participant who joined the SS after Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940. In testimony, he described being inspired as an 18-year-old after seeing a recruitment poster signed by Heinrich Himmler. He also testified to how he and another SS man wore civilian clothes during unannounced visits to the homes of people believed to oppose the Nazis. After asking them to confirm their identities, the two SS men shot them point blank with silenced pistols. 

Boere was born in Germany to a Dutch father and German mother, and moved to the Netherlands as an infant. He volunteered for the SS in 1940 and fought on the Eastern Front before returning to Holland in 1943. At the end of World War II, he was captured and held in several prisoner of war camps before escaping in 1947. In 1954, Boere fled to Germany and worked there as a coal miner until the mid-1970s. 

A court in the Netherlands sentenced him to death in absentia in 1949, and his penalty was later commuted to life imprisonment. Still, he avoided jail time because he holds dual nationality. One German court refused to extradite him, and another refused to force him to serve his Dutch sentence in a German prison because he was absent from his trial. Since the Nuremberg trials after World War II, where several top Nazi officials were sentenced to death, German authorities have examined more than 25,000 war crimes cases, but the majority have never reached court. Boere's trial is part of a recent flurry of arrests as suspected war criminals age into their 90s and pressure builds to bring them to justice while they are still alive. 

The most high-profile of recent Nazi trials is that of John Demjanjuk, whose trial began in Munich in November. He is charged with assisting in the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp in Poland, where prosecutors say he was a guard. Boere is now wheelchair-bound and lives in a nursing home near the German town where he was born 88 years ago. During his trial, he spoke openly of the murders. "At no point did I feel like I was committing a crime," he said. "Now I see things from a different perspective."

 

Source:

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/former-nazi-hitman-heinrich-boere-convicted-of-dutch-murders/19410471

 

Nazi hitman Heinrich Boere faces trial for killing of Dutch civilians during second world war

Germany's highest court today declined to hear the appeal of the admitted Nazi hitman Heinrich Boere, clearing the way for his trial this month for killing three Dutch civilians during the second world war. Boere, 88, was initially ruled unfit for trial owing to medical problems, but a Cologne appeal court overturned the decision in July. Boere's lawyers had appealed against that decision to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, arguing that their client suffers a serious heart condition and that to put him on trial would violate his human rights by putting him in a possibly life-threatening situation. The constitutional court, however, said it ruled on Tuesday that the claim was unfounded. The Cologne appeals court, in its evaluation of the possible health risk of the trial on Boere, "recognised the meaning and the scope of the fundamental right to life" in deciding it could proceed, the federal judges said in their written ruling.

Neither of Boere's lawyers were immediately available for comment on the decision.
The Aachen state court has scheduled 13 court sessions for Boere's trial on three counts of murder, to begin on 28 October and run through 18 December. Each session is to be limited to three hours, in deference to Boere's health.

Boere is accused of the killings of three men in the Netherlands in 1944 when he was a member of a Waffen SS hit squad that targeted civilians at their homes in reprisal for attacks by the resistance.

The son of a Dutch man and German woman, Boere was 18 when he joined the Waffen SS – the fanatical military organisation faithful to Adolf Hitler's ideology – at the end of 1940, only months after the Netherlands had fallen to the Nazi blitzkrieg.
Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949, later commuted to life imprisonment. The Netherlands has sought Boere's extradition, but a German court refused it in 1983 on the grounds that he might have German citizenship. Germany had no provision at the time to extradite its nationals.

An Aachen court ruled in 2007 that Boere could legally serve his Dutch sentence in Germany, but an appeals court in Cologne overturned that ruling, calling the 1949 conviction invalid because Boere was not there to present a defence. He had fled to Germany.

State prosecutors in nearby Dortmund then reopened the case, relying heavily on statements to Dutch police preserved in the court file in which Boere details the killings, almost gunshot by gunshot.

Besides the police statements, Boere also gave an interview to the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad newspaper in 2006 in which he recalled killing bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot when he answered the doorbell at his home in the town of Voorschoten.
"When we knew for sure we had the right person, we shot him dead, at the door," he was quoted as saying. "I didn't feel anything, it was work. Orders were orders,
otherwise it would have meant my skin. Later it began to bother me. Now I'm sorry."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/08/nazi-hitman-heinrich-boere-trial

Nazi hitman Heinrich Boere, 88, IS fit to stand trial for 1944 triple execution, court rules

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 2:36 PM on 7th July 2009

Nazi hit man Heinrich Boere will stand trial for murder in Germany for the execution-style killings of three Dutch civilians during World War II, a court ruled Tuesday after years of legal wrangling.

A Cologne appeals court ruled that the 88-year-old is fit for trial despite medical problems, overruling a lower court's decision this year.

Dortmund prosecutor Ulrich Maass, who brought the charges against Boere, said that no more appeals were possible. 'This is very positive news,' he said.
Boere's lawyer, Gordon Christiansen, said he had no immediate comment.
He is accused of the 1944 killings of three men in the Netherlands when he was a member of a Waffen SS death squad that targeted civilians in reprisal killings for resistance attacks.

In January, the Aachen state court ruled that he was not fit to stand trial on the charges, after hearing testimony that he suffered a serious heart condition and could not take the stress. That ruling was based on a two-day medical exam.
Maass appealed, saying that, despite Boere's old age and poor health, he should be made to answer for his crimes.

In overturning the lower court's ruling, the Cologne court interviewed caregivers from the retirement home where Boere lives, and said it concluded he could stand trial.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, hailed the decision and pushed for a speedy start to the trial.

'We are very pleased that the authorities have decided to prosecute Heinrich Boere - this is an important step in finally achieving justice in his case,' he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

The son of a Dutch man and German woman, Boere was 18 when he joined the Waffen SS - the fanatical military organization faithful to Adolf Hitler's ideology - at the end of 1940, only months after the Netherlands had fallen to the Nazi blitzkrieg.
Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949, later commuted to life imprisonment.

The Netherlands has sought Boere's extradition, but a German court refused it in 1983 refused on grounds that he might have German citizenship. Germany at the time had no provision to extradite its nationals.

A state court in Aachen ruled in 2007 that Boere could legally serve his Dutch sentence in Germany, but the appeals court in Cologne overturned the ruling, calling the 1949 conviction invalid because Boere was not there to present a defence. He had fled to Germany.

Maass reopened the case, relying heavily on statements to Dutch police preserved in the court file in which Boere details the killings, almost gunshot by gunshot.
Besides the police statements, Boere also gave an interview to the Dutch Algemeen Dagblad newspaper in 2006 in which he recalled slaying bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot when he answered the doorbell at his home in the town of Voorschoten.
'When we knew for sure we had the right person, we shot him dead, at the door,' he was quoted as saying.

'I didn't feel anything, it was work. Orders were orders, otherwise it would have meant my skin. Later it began to bother me. Now I'm sorry.'

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1198100/Nazi-hitman-Heinrich-Boere-88-IS-fit-stand-trial-1944-triple-execution-court-rules.html

Heinrich Boere (1921- ), Tertuduh Penjahat Perang Nazi Dari Waffen-SS!

Seorang mantan anggota Waffen-SS yang fanatik berusia 88 tahun pimpinan Adolf Hitler diajukan ke pengadilan, Rabu (28/10) atas tiga tuduhan membunuh semasa perang terhadap tiga warga sipil di Belanda.

Heinrich Boere (lahir 27 September 1921) mengaku telah melakukan tiga pembunuhan kepada pihak berwenang Belanda ketika dia berada dalam tahanan setelah perang tapi berhasil menghindari hukuman selama beberapa dasawarsa -- pertama kabur dari Belanda sebelum ia dapat diseret ke pengadilan, kemudian berhasil menghindari tuduhan-tuduhan di Jerman.

Teriakan-teriakan “kaum Nazi keluar, tidak ada fasis di sini” pecah di ruang pengadilan ketika dua pria memakai busana gaya neo-Nazi berwarna hitam masuk dan mengambil tempat duduk di belakang.

Setelah beberapa menit, setiap orang duduk dan sidang dimulai. Teun de Groot, putra salah seorang korban Boere dan temannya sesama penggugat, memandang lama dan tajam ke arah Boere, yang duduk di ruang sidang menggunakan kursi roda.

Menjelang dimulainya sidang, de Groot menjelaskan kepada para wartawan dia berharap Boere dihukum. “Saya berada dalam suasana hati yang tenang dan saya merasa bagaikan sidang itu berakhir dengan hasil yang baik,” katanya.

Diluar gedung pengadilan, sejumlah pemrotes mengacungkan dua spanduk warna hitam yang bertuliskan “Tidak ada damai bagi para penjahat Nazi” dan “Jangan Ampuni. Jangan Lupa”.

Elisabeth Souvigner, seorang guru sekolah dasar di Aachen dan salah seorang pemrotes, mengatakan “kasus itu memakan waktu terlalu lama. Saya berada di sini hari ini karena saya harus hadir.”

Boere menghadapi kemungkinan menghabiskan sisa hidupnya seumur hidup di penjara jika terbukti bersalah membunuh seorang pemilik toko sepeda pada 1944, seorang ahli farmasi dan warga sipil lain selagi masih menjadi anggota sebuah regu maut SS dengan nama sandi “Silbertanne” atau “Silver Pine.”

Putra seorang pria Belanda dan wanita Jerman, Boere berusia 18 tahun ketika dia menjadi anggota SS pada akhir 1940, hanya beberapa bulan setelah pasukan Jerman menggilas kota asalnya Maastricht dan bagian lain Belanda.

Setelah bertempur di front Rusia, Boere terakhir kembali ke Belanda sebagai anggota “Silbertanne” -- sebuah unit sebagian besar terdiri para relawan SS Belanda seperti dirinya yang ditugaskan melakukan pembunuhan balasan pada rekan senegara mereka karena melakukan serangan perlawanan terhadap para kaki tangan.

Sumber : http://alifrafikkhan.blogspot.com/2009/12/heinrich-boere-1921-tertuduh-penjahat.html

Pengadilan Terakhir Penjahat Nazi

04 Dec 2009

MUENCHEN - John Demjanjuk alias Ivan Mykolayovych Demjanjuk, 89 tahun, bukan selebritas. Namun, Senin lalu, penyandang sebutan "penjahat perang yang paling dicari"-yang diberikan oleh Simon Wiesenthal Center-itu dikelilingi lebih dari 270 wartawan mancanegara, termasuk Tempo, di pengadilan Muenchen.

Demjanjuk datang dengan ambulans dan didorong petugas medis dengan kereta dorong ke dalam gedung. Dia cuma berbaring dengan tubuh terikat ban hitam dan menutupi sebagian wajahnya dengan topi bisbol warna biru. Demjanjuk lalu memasuki ruang sidang dengan kursi roda.

Sebelum diekstradisi ke Jerman pada Mei lalu, keluarganya memang mengatakan kondisi kesehatan Demjanjuk amat buruk karena menderita leukemia, penyakit ginjal, dan penyakit tulang. Tetapi dokter penjara Stadelheim, Muenchen, meyakinkan pengadilan, "Demjanjuk mampu duduk pada dua sesi pengadilan selama 90 menit," katanya. Pengadilan memang direncanakan berlangsung dua sesi, pagi dan siang, setiap hari sampai Mei 2010.

Kebengisan serdadu pengawal elite Hitler, SS, dengan nomor identitas 1393 yang dijuluki "Ivan yang Mengerikan" itu amat ditakuti di Kamp Pembasmian Manusia Sobi-bor, Polandia Utara. Dialah yang memerintahkan penggiringan tawanan Yahudi di Kamp Konsentra-si Westerbork, Belanda, ke kamar gas. Lebih dari 27 ribu orang mati selama ia bertugas pada 1942-1943.
Itu adalah rekor kejahatan Demjanjuk, yang pernah dijatuhi hukuman gantung oleh Pengadilan Israel pada 1988 tetapi di pengadilan tinggi dibebaskan karena kekeliru-
an identitas. "Demjanjuk adalah penjahat Nazi terakhir yang diadili," kata Simon Wiesenthal Center. Tahun ini para petinggi Nazi lainnya, seperti Adolf Storms, 90 tahun, Heinrich Boere (88), dan Joseph Scheungraber (91), sudah lebih dulu diseret ke pengadilan.

Itu sebabnya, banyak famili korban Kamp Sobibor berdatangan dari Belanda. Sayangnya, pintu pengadilan, yang semestinya dibuka pada pukul 07.15, baru dibuka pukul 09.00. Keterlambatan ini jadi masalah besar li Jerman, yang terbiasa tepat waktu, apalagi di luar temperatur 5 derajat Celsius. Luar biasa dinginnya, meski sudah berjaket tebal sekalipun.

Suasana di dalam .gedung memang nyaris kacau dengan begitu banyaknya pengunjung. Petugas pun tak mampu menahan pengunjung yang berjejal. "Anda lihat papan di depan pintu di luar yang bertulisan "Demjanjuk Sammelzone" (Zona Demjanjuk), kesannya seperti mau mengatur barisan kamp konsentrasi," kata Susi Wimmer, wartawati harian Deutsche Zeitung, sembari geleng-geleng kepala.

Kekacauan berlanjut sampai ke ruang sidang, karena ternyata kapasitas tempat duduk tidak mencukupi. Bangku buat wartawan, misalnya, cuma untuk 70-an orang. Kepada Tempo, Ketua Pengadilan Munich Christian Sehmidt Sommerfeld mengatakan, "Saya tidak mengira akan sebanyak ini yang datang. Saya minta maaf," katanya.

Pada hari pertama ini, pengadilan mendengar keterangan 15 saksi. Ibarat memutar balik ingatan yang memilukan, para saksi mengungkap pengalaman pahit mereka dengan linangan air mata. Pengunjung yang hadir pun ikut terisak-isak, sementara Demjanjuk mendengarkan dengan mata terus terpejam. Laki-laki kelahiran Ukraina itu mengaku sama sekali tak paham bahasa Jerman. Hal yang terang dipertanyakan jaksa, "Bagaimana mungkin seorang anggota SS Jerman tidak bisa berbahasa Jerman?" tanyanya.

Pertanyaan itu ditangkis pembela Demjanjuk, Ulrich Busch, "Baju itu cuma seragam yang wajib dipakai, selebihnya ia tetap tentara Soviet," ujarnya. Demjanjuk adalah tawanan Soviet yang diberi pelatihan menjadi serdadu SS di Trawinki, Polandia. Sekitar 150 bekas tawanan Soviet bertugas di Sobibor.

Demjanjuk, yang diam seribu basa, kadang komat-kamit sehingga mengundang pertanyaan hakim. "Ia sedang berdoa," kata penerje-mahnya.

Sumber: http://bataviase.co.id/content/pengadilan-terakhir-penjahat-nazi