German court dismisses case against Nazi guard over lost evidence

Siert Bruins (L) a suspected Nazi war criminal, leaves in an elevator, after his trial was dismissed due to lack of evidence, at a court in the western German city of Hagen January 8, 2014. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

HAGEN, Germany (Reuters) - A German court dismissed a case on Wednesday against a 92-year-old man accused of killing a Dutch resistance fighter in World War Two when he was in Hitler's elite Waffen SS, citing lost evidence.

At the end of one of Germany's last Nazi war crimes trials, the judge in the court in the western city of Hagen said the case had to be dropped because too much evidence had been lost in the seven decades since the event.