Nazi denies slaughter charges

AN 86-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect charged with the murders of 164 Slovak villagers during the Second World War denied he was involved in the shootings of women or children as his trial opened in Germany yesterday.

Ladislav Niznansky is accused of having headed the Slovak section of a Nazi unit code-named Edelweiss, which hunted resistance fighters and Jews after the Germans crushed an uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet government in 1944.

He faces 164 counts of murder for taking part in the killings, including giving the order to shoot 18 Jewish civilians.