PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An 89-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect has died, the night before a judge ruled that he should be extradited to Germany to face trial, his lawyer said Wednesday. 
 
 FILE - This undated file image shows the main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I, Poland, which was liberated by the Russians in January 1945. Writing over the gate reads: "Arbeit macht frei"... (Associated Press) 
 
 Johann Breyer died Tuesday night at a Philadelphia hospital, attorney Dennis Boyle said Wednesday, the same day that U.S. Magistrate Timothy Rice approved the extradition request. The ruling would still have been subject to a final U.S. government review. 
 
 Breyer was hospitalized Saturday. His lawyer said his health had deteriorated but he didn't know the cause of death. 
 
 The U.S. attorney's office said it didn't have any information yet on Breyer's status. 
 
 Rice had found probable cause that "Breyer, the individual before this court, is the same person sought for aiding and abetting murder in Germany." 
 
 "No statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder," he wrote. 
 
 Breyer, a retired tool-and-die maker, was being held on allegations stemming from his suspected service as an SS guard at Auschwitz during World War II. 
 
 U.S. marshals arrested him in June outside his home in northeast Philadelphia. He was facing charges of aiding in the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children at a Nazi death camp. 
 
 Breyer claimed he was unaware of the massive slaughter at Auschwitz and then that he did not participate in it, but "the German allegations belie his claims," the judge wrote. 
 
 "Given Breyer's role as an elite S.S. armed guard at a camp designed and operated almost exclusively as a killing center for Jews, Germany has established probable cause of Breyer's complicity in the mass murders at Auschwitz." 
 
 German authorities in the Bavarian town of Weiden issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest in June 2013. The warrant accuses Breyer of 158 counts of accessory to murder — one count for each trainload of victims brought to the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland from May to October 1944, when Breyer was allegedly a guard there. 
 
 Breyer told The Associated Press in a 2012 interview that while he was a guard at Auschwitz, he was assigned to a part of the camp that was not involved in the slaughter of Jews and others. 
 
 "I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody — and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he told the AP. "I didn't do anything wrong." 
 
 Breyer moved to Philadelphia after World War II and for decades has lived a quiet, middle-class life. He has American citizenship because his mother was born in the U.S.; she later moved to Europe, where Breyer was born. 
 
 In 1992, the U.S. government tried to revoke Breyer's citizenship after discovering his wartime background. The effort became a years-long legal saga and appeared to end with a 2003 decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found Breyer had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it. 
 
 Then he was arrested last month outside his home in northeast Philadelphia based on the 2013 German warrant. Officials say the arrest was delayed for a year because of the complexity of the extradition request. 
 
 His lawyers argued that Breyer should be released on bail pending the extradition hearing because of his frail health. They said he has mild dementia, heart conditions and has suffered strokes in recent years. 
 
 A judge ruled that the federal prison system was capable of caring for Breyer. ||||| A Nazi war crimes suspect from Philadelphia has died a day before a judge approved his extradition to Germany, his lawyer says. 
 
 Johann Breyer, 89, died on Tuesday night at a Philadelphia hospital, his lawyer told the Associated Press news agency. 
 
 He was accused of taking part in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children during his time as an Auschwitz death camp guard. 
 
 A judge issued an order on Wednesday approving a request for Breyer to be extradited to Germany. 
 
 The US government had yet to approve the motion. 
 
 US Magistrate Timothy Rice said in the order there was probable cause that "Breyer, the individual before this court, is the same person sought for aiding and abetting murder in Germany". 
 
 "No statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder," he wrote. 
 
 The US judge also said: "Given Breyer's role as an elite SS armed guard at a camp designed and operated almost exclusively as a killing center for Jews, Germany has established probable cause of Breyer's complicity in the mass murders at Auschwitz." 
 
 In a case that had been building for years, German authorities issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest last year charging him with 158 counts of aiding and abetting the deaths of 216,000 Jews. 
 
 His lawyer said at a hearing last month that Breyer, who walked with a cane, had mild dementia and heart issues. He was being held without bail. 
 
 Breyer - who immigrated to the US in 1952 - acknowledged two years ago that he was an SS guard at Auschwitz in occupied Poland during World War II. 
 
 But he said he was stationed outside the death camp section and had nothing to do with the slaughter. 
 
 He said he was forced to work there as a teenager. 
 
 He told the AP news agency in a 2012 interview: "I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody - and I don't even have a traffic ticket here. I didn't do anything wrong."
– An 89-year-old Philly man suspected of Nazi war crimes died last night in a local hospital, the AP reports—the same day a judge issued an order to have him extradited to Germany. Former toolmaker Johann Breyer had been arrested in June, and German prosecutors wanted to try him for his role in the murder of more than 200,000 Jews at Auschwitz. The extradition order had been awaiting a final stamp of approval from the US government. Breyer was a US citizen (his mother was born here), and he had repeatedly tried to deflect blame for the death-camp killings, saying that he was forced to be a guard as a teen and that he wasn’t in the section of Auschwitz that murdered prisoners, reports Sky News. The judge who issued the extradition order wasn't buying it, declaring that “no statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder." Breyer had mild dementia, heart problems, and a past history of strokes.