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Brazil police seek fugitive Nazi war criminal

Updated: 11/Dec/2005 16:44

Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner

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Brazilian police confirmed Friday it was looking for fugitive Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner after receiving an Interpol tip that he was hiding in the northeastern city of Salvador.

“An international search request already existed for this person, but yesterday (Thursday) we received information that he could be in Brazil,” a federal police spokesman told AFP.

The information was sent by Interpol's Israeli section, the spokesman said.

Mistaken identity

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported earlier that Brunner, the former right hand man to Adolf Eichmann, was living in Salvador and vacationing in Switzerland.

But Swiss police said the Switzerland connection was a case of mistaken identity.

In my opinion, it is impossible that he is the real thing. The suspect himself was traveling under the name Brunner, which makes no sense since a criminal of that magnitude would travel under a pseudonym and not use his own name

Efraim Zuroff, Simon Wiesenthal Centre

The Austrian-born former SS chief is responsible for sending tens of thousands of European Jews to death camps and would be in his early 90s today if still alive.

According to Haaretz, Brazilian police sources said Brunner has been living in Brazil since 1999.

Brazilian police contacted Interpol in May in order to gather information about Brunner in several different countries, particularly Israel, which said it would aid the identification attempt, the newspaper said.

In 2001, Brunner was sentenced in absentia in a Paris court to life in prison on charges of crimes against humanity after a trial that lasted only a few hours.

Reports played down

Reports in Sunday’s Israeli newspapers, however, have played down the likelihood of the suspect in Brazil being Brunner.

The Israeli office of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which aims to assist in the arrest of former Nazis, told the Jerusalem Post that the whole story was “not serious”

Dr. Efraim Zuroff head of the Israel office, said: "In my opinion, it is impossible that he is the real thing. The suspect himself was traveling under the name Brunner, which makes no sense since a criminal of that magnitude would travel under a pseudonym and not use his own name."

Zuroff, said the Brazilian police had asked him for Brunner's fingerprints but he told them it was unnecessary.

Brunner lost at least three fingers and an eye in letter bombs sent to him in Syria," the Nazi hunter said. "There was no need for fingerprints."

Zuroff said that over the last decade there were reports that Brunner was dead, alive or living in Europe.

Day in history

1945: Germany

The Nuremberg Trials begin. Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.