A man said to be the world's most wanted Nazi war criminal, who sent thousands of Jews to death camps, is deceased, new evidence from German sources has revealed.
The top official who was hunting SS captain Alois Brunner all these years said he is "99 percent" certain Brunner died four years ago in civil war-torn Syria, the BBC reported.
"We cannot prove it forensically, but we are certain that is the case," Efraim Zuroff told the BBC.
Brunner, suspected of sending nearly 130,000 Jews to death camps during WWII, is believed to have fled to Syria sometime in the '50s but his whereabouts remained unclear.
New evidence from a former German secret service agent revealed the Austrian native died and was buried somewhere in Damascus, Zuroff, a Holocaust historian, told the BBC. However, it is not possible to determine the location of Brunner's grave due to the civil war.
A French court sentenced Brunner to life in prison in 2001, which he was not present for. Brunner, who would have been 102 today, apparently died unrepentant for his alleged crimes, the BBC reported.
"[Brunner] played a key role in the implementation of Hitler's 'Final Solution' to murder Jews," Zuroff, who is also director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, told the BBC, "and was a monster." The center had Brunner on their most wanted list but removed him in April.
Brunner was sent by "Final Solution" mastermind Adolf Eichmann to speed up the roundup of Jews at different locations when he felt operations were too slow, according to the BBC. In the early '40s he sent 47,000 Jews in Austria to death camps, where most were killed, Zuroff said. Brunner also sent 44,000 Jews in Greece, 23,500 in France and 14,000 in Slovakia to camps.
At some point Brunner fled to Syria, where he is believed to have assumed the name Georg Fischer and gave advice on torture tactics to President Hafez al-Assad's government. Syria has denied all claims that Brunner was hiding in the country.
Israel tried to assassinate Brunner while he was in Syria- twice- Zuroff said. But he survived both attempts.
