Soren Kam should suffer like his victims

Soren Kam is an 86-year-old, Danish-born, former SS officer and citizen of Bavaria, who in mid-1943 took part in the brutal murder of an anti-Nazi newspaper editor, Carl Henrick Clemmensen, in Denmark.

Obersturmfuehrer Kam led a group of three Nazi thugs who, the editor's daughter was later told, fired through her father's hands as he desperately tried to protect himself. The second most highly decorated Danish Nazi, Kam escaped prosecution for the murder although another Dane, Knud Helweg-Larsen, was hanged for it in 1946.

Kam also seized the records of Denmark's Jewish community, hoping thereby to facilitate its massacre in the Holocaust. As a result, he is on the list of the top 10 most-wanted Nazis of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Recently he was tracked down by the BBC and interviewed. In the course of answering

questions in the street, Kam claimed the murder was an "unfortunate accident" but crucially did not deny being present, adding that "I was ordered to be there", an excuse that should have died out at the Nuremberg Trials.

The Danish government has demanded the extradition of Kam, who has been a citizen of Bavaria since - yes, you've guessed it - 1945. Yet the Bavarian government and courts have denied extradition, on the grounds that there is not enough evidence to show that Kam was involved, despite his taped admission.

The whole issue will now be taken up by the EU Justice Commissioner, with all the delay, obfuscation and political manouevring that that implies, as the opportunity to make Kam pay for his 'alleged' crime slips away.

Meanwhile one can almost hear the arguments that are being made in Bavaria for allowing Kam to live out his life in peace there: it was all a long time ago; he's a frail old man; he was only obeying orders; where's the proof that would stand up in a modern court of law, and so on and so on.

Overall, Germany has been faultless