[JURIST] A 94-year-old man will stand trial in Germany for 3,681 counts of accessory to murder on allegations of serving in the Auschwitz death camp during World War II. Prosecutors stated [BBC report] that the man was a former SS sergeant who served as a medic in an SS hospital in Auschwitz. As a medic, the prosecutors stated that the man helped the extermination camp function, which qualifies the charge of accessory to murder. He served in this role from January 1942 to June 1944, while the deaths for which he is being charged occurred between August 15 and September 14, 1944. The man is among a group of 30 men against whom investigators have urged state prosecutors to pursue charges. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to prison time ranging from three to 15 years.

Last month the world marked the seventieth anniversary [JURIST report] of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. Prosecutors are in a race against time to find and prosecute the few remaining living Nazi war criminals who have escaped justice. Earlier this month a German court said [JURIST report] that a 93-year-old man dubbed the “accountant of Auschwitz” will stand trial on charges that he was an accessory to the killing of 300,000 people. In December a German court threw out a case [JURIST report] against a former SS soldier who was accused of being involved in the largest massacre in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. In 2013 German prosecutors brought a 92-year-old former Nazi to trial [JURIST report]. However, his case was dropped [JURIST report] in January due to too many gaps in the evidence. In June 2013 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 2013 while awaiting trial.