Authorities Release Ex-Nazi Guard
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Federal authorities freed a former Nazi concentration camp guard after failing to find a country willing to take the 81-year-old man, who had been stripped of his American citizenship.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in January upheld a decision to revoke Johann Leprich’s citizenship.
In September, Mr. Leprich’s lawyer asked a federal judge to order his client released, citing a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring the freeing of those still held for deportation six months after a removal order.
The Justice Department said it released Mr. Leprich on Monday because Romania, Hungary, and Germany refused to accept him, despite high-level meetings with officials from those countries, the Detroit Free Press reported in its editions yesterday.
“What country is going to accept an 81-year-old man who is in declining health?” Mr. Leprich’s attorney, Joseph McGinness, said.
Mr. Leprich was released to his wife and son, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said. He said Mr. Leprich must report weekly to ICE and that the agency will continue to seek his deportation.
An ethnic German born in Romania, Mr. Leprich joined the Nazi military organization Waffen-SS in 1943 and served as a guard at Mauthausen concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Austria, court records say. About 119,000 people were killed at Mauthausen, including political prisoners, Jews, and Soviet, Dutch, and Czech prisoners of war.
He immigrated to America after World War II and became an American citizen in 1958.