Germans arrest ex-Nazi

BERLIN - A 93-year-old man who was deported from the United States for lying about his Nazi past was arrested by German authorities Monday on allegations that he served as an Auschwitz death camp guard, Stuttgart prosecutors said.

Hans Lipschis was taken into custody after authorities concluded there was "compelling evidence" he was involved in crimes at Auschwitz while there from 1941 to 1945, prosecutor Claudia Krauth said.

Lipschis has acknowledged being assigned to an SS guard unit at Auschwitz but maintains he served only as a cook and was not involved in any war crimes.

Krauth said, however, that a judge upheld her office's request for an arrest warrant after concluding there was enough evidence to hold him before charges on accessory to murder are brought.

Bringing formal charges, a process similar to a U.S. grand jury indictment, would take two additional months, she said.

In the meantime, Krauth said, a doctor has confirmed that Lipschis' health remains good enough for him to be kept in detention.

Lipschis was deported from the United States in 1983 for lying about his Nazi past when he immigrated to Chicago in the 1950s after the war.

With no evidence linking him to specific war crimes, however, it was impossible under previous German law to bring charges against him in Germany.

But the case is now being pursued on the same legal theory used to prosecute former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who died last year while appealing his 2011 conviction in Germany for accessory to murder on the grounds that he served as a guard at the Sobibor death camp.

Under the new line of thinking, even without proof of participation in a specific crime, a person who served at a death camp can be charged with accessory to murder because the camp's sole function was to kill people.