Terrified Nazi Tries To Escape

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ROME: Hours before he was due to testify in a trial of a former Nazi officer, a key prosecution witness broke his pelvis Friday trying to flee. The witness, former SS Major Carl Hass, had volunteered to testify against former SS Major Erich Priebke, who is accused of executing 335 civilians in caves near Rome in 1944. Hass, 84, who fell while trying to climb over the terrace outside his second-story hotel room in Rome, is in stable condition and has agreed to testify from his hospital bed on Wednesday. The desperate escape attempt raised questions about why the elderly witness would try to run after he had been so cooperative with authorities, reports TIME Rome correspondent Toula Vlahou. Though Hass is being investigated for his involvement in the massacre, he seemed to be an ideal prosecution witness, she reports. He talked with reporters about Priebke's role in the killings, and endured five hours of questioning by prosecutors on Thursday night. "Somewhere between the time Hass spoke to prosecutors and the time he went to bed, something must have spooked him," says Vlahou. "At his age, something must have truly horrified him to make him leap off the terrace. After all, he is 84 years old. What does he have to lose?" Game Two