Demjanjuk case prompts call for Auschwitz probe

A decision to call for an investigation of 30 alleged former guards at Auschwitz was prompted by the case of Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk.

Demjanjuk was the first Nazi war criminal to be convicted in Germany without evidence of a specific crime or victim, but purely on the grounds he had served as death camp guard.

German justice officials have called for 30 former Nazi guards to face prosecution for their role in facilitating mass murder at the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.

Watch our Special Correspondent Rageh Omaar's report on the story:

Prosecutors have investigated 50 former guards and decided to pursue 30 cases, the Baden-Wuerttemberg Justice Ministry said.

Demjanjuk died last year, aged 91, while appealing against a five-year jail sentence for complicity in the murder of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor camp in Poland.

His case established that death camp guards could be convicted as accessories to murder, even where there was no specific evidence of atrocities against them.