[JURIST] A German prosecutor on Monday recommended that a 94-year-old man living in Minnesota be charged with 40 counts of murder for his involvement in an attack that razed a Polish village to the ground in 1944. An earlier investigation [RT report] found that retired Minnesota carpenter Michael Karkoc was formerly a commander in a Nazi SS-led unit, and ordered an attack on the Polish village of Chlaniow. Thomas Will, the deputy head of Germany’s special prosecutors’ office that investigations Nazi crimes, has determined that the requirements for murder charges are there and has recommended [WP report] that state prosecutors pursue the charges against Karkoc. Karkoc entered the US in 1949, and denies any involvement with the Nazi forces.

Despite the ages of the accused, authorities have continued to arrest individuals charged with war crimes during the Holocaust. In September Germany began the trial [JURIST report] of 92-year-old Siert Bruins, a former Nazi Waffen SS, for the execution of captured Dutch Nazi-opposition fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in 1944. In June Hungarian prosecutors charged [JURIST report] Laszlo Csatary, a 98-year-old Hungarian man, with the unlawful execution and torture of people in connection with the Holocaust. Csatary died [JURIST report] in August while awaiting trial. In May German authorities arrested [JURIST report] a 93-year-old man for allegedly serving as a guard at Auschwitz and assisting in the mass murder carried out at the death camp. German prosecutors have reopened [JURIST report] hundreds of investigations involving former death camp guards after the conviction [JURIST report] of John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive] in May 2011 for the murder of thousands during the Holocaust. Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison but was released early due to old age and died in September 2011 while awaiting an appeal [JURIST report].