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Last update - 23:30 04/02/2009
Report: World's most wanted Nazi 'Doctor Death' died in 1992
By News Agencies
Tags: Dr. Death, Nazi, Jewish World 

Germany's ZDF TV reported Wednesday it had found documents proving that the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminal, concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim, died in Cairo in 1992.

ZDF reported that Heim was living under a pseudonym and had converted to Islam by the time of his death from intestinal cancer.

The German channel went on to say that it found his passport, application for a residence permit, bank slips, personal letters and medical documents, which were left behind by Heim in the hotel room where he lived under the name Tarek Farid Hussein.
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It reported Wednesday that witnesses, including Heim's son Ruediger Heim, confirmed Heim and Hussein were the same man.

"Yes, my father lived in Cairo," the son told ZDF in an interview.

Simon Wiesenthal Center head Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff said he has not seen the documents but if the news is true, it is "earth shattering."

Heim, also known as Dr. Death, was thought to have been living in South America.

As an SS doctor in the Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen, he was accused of killing and torturing hundreds of inmates by various methods, including lethal injections directly into the hearts of his victims.

Witnesses said he made a lampshade for a camp commander from the skin of one of his victims.

Born in Austria in 1914, he practiced as a gynecologist in the German city of Baden-Baden after the war, before fleeing in 1962.

An international arrest warrant for him was issued and the Simon Wiesenthal Center placed advertisements in South America, referring to the $400,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Heim's son said he visited his father for the first time in Cairo in the mid-1970s and looked after him for several months early 1990 after Heim underwent surgery for cancer.

The son said he had confronted his father with the allegations, but Heim had denied them. Egyptian friends, acquaintances and even the war criminal's doctor knew nothing about his true past.

A German police spokesman told ZDF that the research by the television channel matched the latest information obtained by German authorities.

"It was not possible to confirm the information," the police spokesman added.

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