An Italian magistrate has suspended the work permit of a 93-year-old Nazi war criminal whose first day at work sparked angry protests by Italian
Jews, officials said on Tuesday.

Serving a life sentence under house arrest in Rome, former SS officer Erich Priebke won permission from a military court to work at his lawyer's Rome offices. He arrived there on Monday, riding Roman-style on the back of his lawyer's scooter.

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After a day of protests in which demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Murderer!", Judge Isacco Giorgio Giustiniani late on Monday night suspended Priebke's authorization to work, citing his failure to properly communicate his movements.

Priebke was convicted for the massacre of 335 men and boys at the Ardeatine Caves near Rome during World War Two. He was extradited to Italy in 1995 from Argentina, where he had fled.

His work permit had particularly outraged the Jewish community because it allowed him to go out of the office "every day, freely" to satisfy "the indispensable necessities of life" - meaning he could go out for lunch.

Priebke had aimed to use his knowledge of German, Spanish, English and French to do translations for his lawyer and to work as a clerk.

The ex-Nazi has admitted to participating in the massacre at the Ardeatine Caves but said he was obeying orders at the pain of death. In Argentina, he lived for half a century as a schoolmaster in the Andean town of Bariloche.