US Man In Nazi Crimes Probe 'Unfit For Trial'

German prosecutors have dropped a Nazi war crimes investigation into a US man accused of leading an SS unit that razed villages filled with women and children.

Officials determined that 96-year-old retired Minnesota carpenter Michael Karkoc was not fit for trial.

Munich prosecutor Peter Preuss said his office's decision was based on medical documentation from doctors at the US geriatric hospital where Karkoc is being treated.

He told the Associated Press news agency that Karkoc's lawyer had refused to allow him to be examined by a medical expert from Germany.

Karkoc allegedly lied to American immigration officials to get into the US, a few years after World War II.

Evidence suggests he was an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defence Legion.

Mr Karkoc himself allegedly directed a 1944 attack on a Polish village in which dozens of civilians were killed.

Nazi SS files also indicate he and his unit were involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which a Polish rebellion against German occupation was ruthlessly suppressed.

But his family, who live in Minneapolis, have denied he was involved in any war crimes.

The US Department of Justice has refused to say whether it ever investigated Karkoc.

Efraim Zuroff, the lead Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, questioned why US officials did not initiate deportation proceedings.

"They should have been aware of his presence in the United States a long time ago," he told AP news agency by telephone from Lithuania.

"And if they were aware and did not take any action, that's very unfortunate, and I would say atypical, but it's obviously a failure."

Only a handful of Nazi fugitives remain on the centre's most-wanted list, but it is not clear if they are even still alive.

In April, a former SS guard went on trial in Germany charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Oskar Groening, 93, told the court how queues of trains formed outside Auschwitz because the camp was so busy having prisoners "processed".