US seeks to expel alleged Nazi camp guard

The United States has begun moves to expel an 84-year-old man alleged to have been a top guard in several Nazi concentration camps in Germany, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The United States has begun moves to expel an 84-year-old man alleged to have been a top guard in several Nazi concentration camps in Germany, the Justice Department said on Friday.Anton Geiser, who arrived in the US from Austria in 1956 and became a citizen in 1962, is accused of working at the infamous Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin in 1943."Geiser served as an armed SS Death's Head guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, Germany," the department said in a statement.

HT Image

It added his "duties included escorting prisoners to slave labor sites and standing guard from the camp's watch towers; and that he was under orders to shoot any prisoner attempting escape."He also allegedly worked at Buchenwald concentration camp."Through his service as a Nazi concentration camp guard, Anton Geiser helped subject thousands of innocent civilians to inhumane and frequently lethal treatment", said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division."The United States will not provide a safe haven for such individuals."

Geiser's citizenship was revoked by a Pittsburgh judge in 2006.The court concluded Geiser "clearly assisted in the persecution of people because of race, religion and national origin," and he was therefore legally barred from receiving a visa to come to the United States.

But his attorney in Washington said he filed a last-minute emergency motion for a stay of expulsion with a US immigration court on Thursday, a day after filing a petition for an administrative stay with the Department of Homeland Security.