NOBODY WANTS BODY OF NAZI WAR CRIMINAL ERICH PRIEBKE

Priebke’s funeral in Albano Laziale, a city south of Rome, was halted Tuesday evening when anti-Fascist protestors clashed with neo-Nazis. Police spirited his body to an Italian military air base where it lies in limbo.

BODY OF NAZI WAR CIMINAL HAS NO TAKERS
Rome, his adopted homeland of Argentina, and his hometown in Germany won't accept his body

Associated Press
October 15, 2013

ROME - What to do with the body of a Nazi war criminal no one wants?

Rome's mayor, police chief and the pope's right-hand man have all refused to grant former SS Capt. Erich Priebke a church funeral in the city where he participated in one of the worst massacres in German-occupied Italy. Now there's the added question of where to bury him, since Rome, his adopted homeland of Argentina, and his hometown in Germany won't take him.

Priebke spent nearly 50 years as a fugitive before being extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1995 to stand trial for the 1944 massacre at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome, in which 335 civilians were killed. He died Friday at age 100 in the Rome home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini, where he had been serving his life term under house arrest.

In his final interview released upon his death, Priebke denied the Nazis gassed Jews during the Holocaust and accused the West of inventing such crimes to cover up atrocities by the Allies.

Rome's archdiocese said Monday it had told Giachini to have the funeral at home "in strict privacy" and that Pope Francis' vicar for Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, had prohibited any Rome church from celebrating it.

But Giachini refused, pressing instead for a private church Mass. The archdiocese responded by reminding all Roman priests that they must abide by Vallini's decision.