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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." His lawyers argued that Breyer should be released on bail pending the extradition hearing because of his frail health. His lawyer said at a hearing last month that Breyer, who walked with a cane, had mild dementia and heart issues.
– 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.