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Aribert Heim, "Doctor Death," now 91
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| By Associated Press October 16, 2005 |
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A Nazi war criminal known as "doctor death" for his experiments that killed hundreds of prisoners during World War II has been found in Spain, an Israeli Web site reported Saturday, but Spanish police said they had not yet found the man.
The German weekly Der Spiegel also reported Saturday that Spanish investigators believe the fugitive, Aribert Heim, could be located in Spain.
Police in Spain said Saturday they had not found Heim during searches after receiving indications he was located in the northeastern province of Girona.
"We haven't detained anyone with that name," said Joan Lopez, a police spokesman in Girona. "All we know is that he may have been in the area of Palafrugell recently."
Haaretz said that Heim, 91, will soon be arrested by Spanish police. Heim had been at large since he was charged by German authorities in 1962 with killing hundreds of concentration inmates in Germany and Austria with lethal injections.
Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Nazi watchdog Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the search for Heim intensified a year and a half ago when the German government discovered a bank account in his name and set up a special task force to find him.
However, it was not clear if Heim was still in Spain, he said.
"There's some speculation that he might have escaped to other countries," Zuroff said.
Since the end of the war, Heim evaded capture in Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil and Spain.
During the war, Heim earned his nickname of "doctor death" for performing especially sadistic experiments on inmates at the Buchanwald and Mauthausen camps. The research included surgery without anesthesia and injecting prisoners with gasoline, poison and lethal drugs to see how much their bodies could take before dying, Haaretz said.
Spanish investigators believe a relative of Heim has transferred about $363,000 to an acquaintance in Spain over the past five years and are looking into the possibility that at least some of it it may have been used to support Heim, Der Spiegel reported.
The magazine said Spain was suspected as his possible hiding place as long ago as the mid-1980s, and there have been increasing indications over recent weeks that he may have until recently lived somewhere near Denia on the Mediterranean coast.
After the war, Heim worked as a doctor in southern Germany until he was indicted. German authorities have offered a $159,000 reward for his arrest, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center $12,200
The Wiesenthal Center earlier this year asked Austria to find a way to strip Heim of the academic title of doctor he received in 1940 from the University of Vienna. Heim was never allowed to practice medicine in Austria because he did not finish his medical training in the country.
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