being sentenced to life in prison is ridiculous. How can anybody that age be held accountable for something they did 60 or 70 years earlier!

I understand your gut reaction to imprisoning him, but if he had been sentenced to life 60 years ago, would you be arguing for his release now? There are a lot of elderly people in prison right now paying for horrendous things they did when they were in their 20s, and most of them are not lucky enough to make it to 90. It's the nature of a life sentence. There's a reason there's no statute of limitations on murder. Murderers don't get to rest. Not ever.

Maybe he was told to do what he did, maybe there were extenuating circumstances, we don't know, but even if he did what he is accused of, there comes a time to let go!

"I was only following orders" is no excuse if you follow the precedent set at Nuremburg and subsequent war crimes trials. In this particular case, it appears he was giving the orders for deliberate and specific murder anyway and that the victims had zero military value.

This guy has had 60+ free years of life that he didn't deserve and 500+ years that he denied to others out of pure malice. If anything he should be punished more for lost time. It isn't up to us to grant him mercy as those that he needlessly killed are unable to..

At 90 you are not the same person you were at 30, a different person is being punished.

mrliberal, Would you feel the same toward a person who raped and killed your bride 50 or 60 years ago? What about the man who raped and killed your child 50 years ago? Would you still be saying that he is a different person now and shouldn't be punished?

mrliberal:

At 90 you are not the same person you were at 30, a different person is being punished.

That still begs my original question. Do you think that elderly people serving life sentences for things they did decades ago should be let out of prison on the grounds that they are now different people? If you do think so, what is your opinion on life sentences?

And if you're worried about whether or not what he did or did not do can be proven, given how long ago it happened, that's a due process argument, and has nothing to do with his age. For all we know, the evidence is still perfectly adequate for a conviction.

I understand that we have statutes of limitations because yes, at a certain point, we just decide to let go of certain things, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions, at least, have no statute of limitations on murder. I don't know enough about European law to speak for them, but at least in the United States, we as a society have decided never, ever to let go of murder.