German court throws out Nazi Oradour massacre case

A German court has thrown out the case against an 89-year-old former soldier over the Nazis' worst atrocity on French soil.

In a move that was met with anger and disappointment among survivors, the regional court in the western city of Cologne said it would not try the pensioner, citing a lack of evidence.

The man, Werner Christukat, was charged in January with the murder of 25 people committed by a group, and with aiding and abetting the murder of several hundred people.

SS troops slaughtered 642 people in the tiny village of Oradour-sur-Glane in western France on June 10, 1944, in a horrific second world war crime that deeply scarred the French nation.

The tribunal said it had examined whether the available evidence would likely be sufficient to lead to a conviction.

Christukat, who was 19 at the time, had acknowledged that he was in Oradour-sur-Glane and a member of the SS but disputed any involvement in the murders.

The male victims were mowed down with machine guns in a barn, with any survivors shot at close range with pistols before the barn was set ablaze.

Prosecutors had said that the suspect then went to the village church where several hundred women and children were being held prisoner.

Members of the unit used explosives, automatic weapons and hand grenades to kill many of them, then set the church on fire.

Christukat was accused of abetting the murder by either assuming blockade and surveillance duties within sight of the church, or carrying flammable material to the church.

The charges were part of a twilight bid by the German justice system to prosecute Nazi crimes.