BERLIN -- German prosecutors have shelved their Nazi war crimes investigation of a retired Minnesota carpenter whom The Associated Press exposed as a former commander in an SS-led unit, saying Friday that the 96-year-old is not fit for trial.
The decision came more than two years after an Associated Press story established that Michael Karkoc commanded a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion accused of burning villages filled with women and children, based on wartime documents, testimony from other members of the unit and Karkoc's own Ukrainian-language memoir.
Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, questioned why the U.S. Department of Justice had not initiated deportation proceedings against Karkoc after the evidence was revealed.
"They should have been aware of his presence in the United States a long time ago, and if they were aware and did not take any action, that's very unfortunate, and I would say atypical, but it's obviously a failure," he said by telephone from Lithuania.
"If they weren't aware of him, then it means he slipped through the cracks, but once AP exposed him they should have moved ahead as quickly as possible."
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Peter Preuss said Karkoc's attorney had refused to allow him to be examined by a medical expert from Germany, and that his office's decision was based on "comprehensive medical documentation" from doctors at the geriatric hospital in the U.S. where he is being treated.
He said doctors there had provided prosecutors with a comprehensive assessment of Karkoc's health over the past year, which was evaluated by a medical expert in Germany.
"There are no doubts about the authenticity of the documentation of his treatment," said Preuss, who declined to provide specifics about Karkoc's health on privacy grounds.
The German investigation began after the June 2013 article, which established Karkoc was a commander of the unit and then lied to American immigration officials to get into the U.S. a few years after World War II.
A second report uncovered evidence that Karkoc ordered his men in 1944 to attack a Polish village in which dozens of civilians were killed, contradicting statements from his family that he was never at the scene.
Karkoc's family, which lives in Minneapolis, has denied he was involved in any war crimes.
Karkoc's son and family spokesman, Andriy Karkos, said by phone Friday that he planned a statement later in the day about the case and that he looked forward to clearing his father's name, but declined further comment.
The U.S. Department of Justice has refused to say whether it has ever investigated Karkoc, citing its policy of neither confirming nor denying investigations.
Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr said Friday he also could not comment on whether his office would now pursue deportation proceedings against Karkoc.
Zuroff said deportation proceedings would have sent a powerful moral message, even if the Department of Justice had thought lengthy deportation proceedings would have been fruitless at Karkoc's advanced age.
Poland also initiated an investigation into Karkoc, which remains open.
State National Remembrance Institute spokesman Andrzej Arseniuk said Friday that his office's prosecutors are currently awaiting a reply from the U.S. to a request for help identifying handwriting believed to be Karkoc's.
The German investigation took longer than usual because prosecutors first had to wait for a court ruling that they had jurisdiction in the case.
That came last year, when the Federal Court of Justice said Karkoc's service in the SS-led unit made him the "holder of a German office."
That gave Germany the legal right to prosecute him even though he is not German, his alleged crimes were against non-Germans and they were not committed on German soil.
Someone in that role "served the purposes of the Nazi state's world view," the court said.
When cases in Germany are shelved, they can be reopened at any time if circumstances change.
The news came on the day a Jewish newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that Stephen Ankier, a retired clinical pharmacologist whose Nazi war crimes research helped lead to Karkoc, had located a former rifleman in Karkoc's unit living near Manchester.
Ankier said he hadn't found anything linking the 90-year-old man to war crimes but passed details on to German, U.S. and Polish prosecutors many months ago in case they wanted him as a possible witness in the Karkoc case.
Preuss would not say whether German investigators had planned to question the rifleman but said the man is not considered a suspect.
Information for this article was contributed by Monika Scislowska and Brian Bakst of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/01/2015