Nazi secretary, 96, caught after skipping out on war crimes trial set to start yesterday

Irmgard Furchner, 96, a former SS secretary at the Stutthof concentration camp, was set to go to trial in Itzehoe, Germany as an accessory to more than 11,000 murders during the Nazi regime 75 years ago. Shortly before the trial was to begin though, Furchner jumped into a taxi and fled. Fortunately, police tracked her down a few hours later. From NPR:

The accused woman previously had "announced that she didn't want to come" to court, but the statement did not provide sufficient grounds for detaining her ahead of the trial, [court spokesperson Frederik] Milhoffer said. Given the woman's age and condition, she had not been expected "actively to evade the trial," Milhoffer added[…]

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press that "if she is healthy enough to flee, she is healthy enough to be incarcerated."[…]

More than 60,000 people were killed [at the Stutthof concentration camp] by being given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, or being shot or starved. Others were forced outside in winter without clothing until they died of exposure, or were put to death in a gas chamber.