A 96-year-old former SS member who was involved in the massacre of 86 French men and boys during the Second World War is facing a new investigation for hate speech.
Karl Münter was sentenced to death in absentia in France in 1949 - but he had long since returned home to Germany.
The verdict is now meaningless because the French statute of limitations - 20 years - has expired, and EU citizens cannot be prosecuted for crimes they have already been convicted of in another state.
This means that Münter has not served a single day in prison for his part in the brutal killings that took place in the village of Ascq, near Lille on the night of April 1 1944.
Karl Münter, 96, was sentenced to death in France in 1949 for his part in the massacre of 86 French men and boys - but the statue of limitations has run out and the sentence is now meaningless
But German prosecutors are now investigating him on suspicion of hate speech over comments he made in a television interview with NDR's Panorama which aired in December 2018.
In his first interview about his time in the SS, Münter said that the victims of the horrific massacre deserved to be shot because they tried to 'run away' and disputed that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
'If I arrest the men I'm responsible for them. And if they run away I have the right to shoot them,' he said.
But he resolutely maintained that he did not fire his own weapon, but was 'Nur dabei' (merely present) at the massacre.
Münter also confessed he was not sorry for his participation in the war crimes. Asked if he regretted it at all, he replied: 'No, not at all!'
'Why should I regret it?,' he said. 'I didn't fire a shot'.
After admitting that he was nostalgic for the Third Reich, Münter added: 'And the matter of the Jews that is attributed to (Hitler)... be careful.'
Münter, pictured in his SS uniform around the time of the Ascq massacre, has not served a single day in prison and has resided quietly in Lower Saxony ever since. The photograph is part of a photo album sent to him by neo-Nazis who worship him as an icon
'There weren't millions of Jews (in Germany) at the time, that's already been disproved.
'This number - six million - is not correct.'
His comments which amount to Holocaust denial caused outrage in Germany and prosecutors are investigating them as an incitement to hatred.
The country's Volksverhetzung law, ('incitement of the masses'/'incitement to hatred'), is often applied to, though not limited to, trials relating to Holocaust denial.
If found guilty of Volksverhetzung, Münter could face a prison sentence of up to five years.
