[JURIST] A German court on Monday acquitted former Nazi commander Ladislav Niznansky [BBC report] on murder charges stemming from three World War II massacres in Slovakia. The 88-year-old former Slovak army commander faced 164 counts of murder in connection with massacres in two Slovak villages and a later uprising against the Nazi puppet regime in Slovakia. Niznansky was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death in then-communist Czechoslovakia in 1962, but was not arrested [JURIST report] until March 2004. Prosecutors in the current trial had tried to use evidence from the 1962 proceedings, but German Judge Manfred Goetzl said there was no longer any reliable evidence that Niznansky was involved in the killings. Goetzl pointed to contradictory evidence from witnesses and said that the court couldn't base a judgment on evidence from the 1962 trial because documents showed that Communist-era officials had planned it "from start to finish." AP has more. From Germany, Deutsche Welle has local coverage.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Defense demands acquittal for accused Nazi
• German court orders release of suspected Nazi
• Nazi war crimes trial opens in Germany
• Nazi war crimes suspect arrested in Germany