Griffin W.E.B.: Honor Bound 02 - Blood and Honor

Priebke has been under house arrest in Bariloche for 17 months since admitting a role in the killings. He has said his task was to cross out the names of victims as they were led into the caves to be executed.

"I was just obeying orders," he said in the interview. "All I knew was that they (the victims) belonged to the Italian Resistance in some way."

Argentina's Supreme Court ordered Priebke's extradition to Rome on November 2.

An Italian delegation, including Interpol officers and a military doctor, arrived yesterday in Bariloche.

According to unconfirmed local press reports, the officials were expected to fly back to Rome with Priebke today at 8 am. Argentine authorities will hand over Priebke to Italian authorities at the local airport, the reports said.

Priebke had lived openly in Argentina since escaping from a British prison camp in 1946. He worked as a waiter in Buenos Aires before moving to Bariloche, where he ran a delicatessen.

"Between March 23 and 24 (1944), Pope Pius XII tried to avoid the reprisal. A great number of Vatican envoys were sent everywhere," Priebke told La Mahana del Sur. He said the Vatican appealed to the German Embassy in Rome and to military leaders, including himself and his superior Herbert Kappler. (DYN-Reuter)

Priebke's attorney Pedro Bianchi said yesterday that the case was historically significant because it involved "the last Nazi." Today marks the 50th an niversary of the Nuremberg trials in which Nazis were tried for committing crimes against humanity during World War II. (Reuter-NA)

The Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, Argentina

November 20, 1995

Priebke Gone, Hugs Cops, Latter in Trouble

San Carlos de Bariloche

Argentina extradited former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy yesterday to face trial for his role in that country's worst World War II atrocity—the Ardeatine Caves massacre of 335 men and boys.

The former SS captain, now 82, was taken from his home in Bariloche to an airplane sent by Italy to take him to Rome.

He looked serene as he smiled and waved goodbye from the tarmac before boarding the Falcon DA 90 aircraft.

A preliminary committal hearing to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to proceed to a full trial is scheduled in Rome for December 7.

Priebke shook hands with police and hugged some of those who escorted him to the local airport, witnesses said. Interior Minister Carlos Corach later asked that the young officer who was caught by television cameras hugging Priebke be stripped of his police duties. The police suspended him and the officer in charge.

In an interview published yesterday by a local newspaper Priebke expressed grief at having to leave his family behind and hope that his captors will set him free.

He said his wife Alicia was not accompanying him because of her poor health. "She suffered a shock the day I was arrested," he said.

Several Italian Interpol members and at least two doctors also boarded the plane. Priebke has a heart condition but an Argentina judge ruled last week he was fit for the flight.

He has been under house arrest in Bariloche since confessing his part in the atrocity to a US television interviewer last year. The extradition put an end to a year and a half of legal wrangling.

Priebke, who spent the weekend with relatives and friends, said in a newspaper interview on Sunday that he had rejected repeated Vatican pleas to avoid the massacre.

The Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, Argentina November 21, 1995

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