Aformer secretary at a Nazi concentration camp, now aged 97, appeared remorseful, speaking for the first time about the charges against her at her trial in Itzehoe, northern Germany.
"I regret everything that happened. I regret being in Stafhof at that time. That's all I have to say," said Irmgard Fuhrner.
The statements made by the defendant, who is wheelchair-bound, were confirmed to Agence France-Presse by her lawyer, Niklas Weber.
Fuhrner is accused of complicity in more than 11,000 homicides at the concentration camp at Stachow, in what is now Poland. Her trial began in September 2021.
Today, her lawyers asked the court to acquit her as, they argue, from the evidence presented[/B] it cannot be concluded with certainty that the defendant knew[/B] that people were being systematically exterminated at Statkhof.
On 22 November, the prosecution had requested that the former secretary be given a two-year suspended prison sentence.
[BR][BR]The decision of the court is expected to be announced on 20 December.
[/P]The trial got off to an eventful start last September, as the defendant... ran away on the same day. Instead of appearing in court, she took a taxi from her home and went to a nursing home. She was found there a few hours later.
At the age of 18-19, Fuhrner worked as a typist and secretary to the camp's commander, Paul Werner Hoppe, and her position was "essential" to the inhumane system at Stuthof, according to prosecutor Maxie Vanden.
At Statkhof, near Gdansk, some 65,000 people, mostly Jews, Polish resistance fighters and Soviet prisoners of war, were exterminated, according to historians.
Source: APE-MPE
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