Greek court rules against Nazi victims

In one village, Distomo, 218 people were massacred

Greece's highest court has ruled against thousands of Nazi victims who are seeking compensation from Germany for World War II atrocities.

We won't let this go by like that, we will fight it with all our strength because we want to see justice

Manolis Grezos, war reparations council

The Special Supreme Court in Athens said on Wednesday that Greek courts could not try cases against a foreign country.

But a lawyer for the 60,000 Greek claimants said the case, which has strained relations between Germany and Greece, would go before European courts.

Among the plaintiffs are descendants of an infamous 1944 Nazi massacre in the Greek village of Distomo, where German forces went on a rampage and killed 218 men, women and children.

"We won't let this go by like that, we will fight it with all our strength because we want to see justice," said Manolis Glezos of the National Council for War Reparations.

The ruling is the latest in a long legal saga for the victims, who are seeking damages for massacres in more than 60 Greek towns and villages.

Property seizures

Germany has maintained that it settled all such claims in the 1960s with a $67m payment.

But in a 2000 Supreme Court judgment, the Distomo claimants won about $27m in compensation.

Germany refused to pay, and the Greek court then authorised the seizure and auction of German state properties in Athens - such as the Goethe Institute language school.

But the Greek Government refused to approve selling the land for compensation, and court officials stopped trying to seize German property after Berlin launched a legal appeal.

The rarely-convened Special Supreme Court, Greece's highest legal authority, includes judges from all of Greece's high courts.