WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES THE TRANSFER OF NAZI WAR CRIMINAL ERICH PRIEBKE TO THE ARDEANTINE CAVES - THE SITE OF THE MASS MURDER HE ORDERED

In response to news that convicted Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke would be temporarily transferred from his house arrest in Rome to the home of a friend in the Italian province of Varese, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging authorities to instead move him to the Ardeantine Caves outside Rome, the site where, in1944, he ordered 335 Italian citizens to be murdered. Priebke was given a life sentence in 1998 for this crime. He requested a police-supervised vacation to spend time in a different location.

"If Erich Priebke wants a change of venue from his current house arrest, the Italian court should set up a cot for him at the memorial at Ardeantine Caves, the site where, as a result of Erich Priebke’s order, 335 innocent Italian citizens were each executed with a bullet at the back of his neck," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center.

"That would be a most appropriate change of venue for this unrepentant mass murderer in the final years of his life," Cooper added.

Following the end of WWII, Priebke, who was the Gestapo chief in Brescia, Italy, escaped to Argentine. In 1994, acting on information supplied by the Wiesenthal Center, ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson located Priebke. Wiesenthal Center officials demanded that the Italian government extradite him from Argentina. After a lengthy trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to life.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, or visit www.wiesenthal.com.