97-year-old former Nazi secretary seeks acquittal in German court

The former secretary made headlines last year for trying to flee her trial

Irmgard Furchner in court (Marcus Brandt/AFP/Getty)

A lawyer representing a 97-year-old former secretary for a Nazi concentration camp commander has asked that his client be acquitted, claiming she did not know what was happening at the camp.

The secretary, Irmgard Furchner, was a secretary for the commander of the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now northern Poland. She has been on trial for more than a year in northern Germany, according to the Associated Press.

Ms Furchner said she was sorry for her involvement in the camp and regretted that she took the position at the time.

Her lawyers are requesting an acquittal, citing a lack of evidence to prove beyond a doubt that she knew that prisoners at the camp were being systemically murdered by the Nazis. Without proof that she knew what was happening, they argue she should be spared from criminal liability.

Prosecutors disagree with that assessment, claiming Ms Furchner’s work helped maintain the function of the camp. They called for her to be convicted as an accessory to murder and given a two-year suspended sentence.

Ms Furchner is being tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 when she worked at the camp.

Last year, the former secretary made headlines when she left her home in Hamburg just hours before her trial was set to begin, according to the Associated Press.

She previously announced that she "didn’t want to come," but the court ruled that insufficient grounds for detaining her. The court officials reportedly did not think a woman of her age and condition would attempt "actively to evade the trial."

Police eventually found her and brought her to court for her trail.

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s office in Jerusalem, told the AP that is Ms Furchner "is healthy enough to flee, she is healthy enough to be incarcerated."