Franco Origlia/Getty,Franco Origlia
An Italian military airport is now holding the body of convicted Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, officials said Wednesday. Priebek’s funeral had been scheduled to take place in Albano Laziale, south of Rome, but was called off after angry protesters surrounded the office of the Catholic group that had been planning the funeral. The Vatican had placed an unprecedented ban on holding the funeral at the Vatican, but a splinter group, the Society of St. Pius X, offered to hold the ceremony. Priebke, 100, had been convicted of being one of the SS officers who killed 335 Italian men and boys at Rome’s Ardeatine Caves in 1944, a massacre said to ordered by Hitler himself. Priebke admitted his role in the massacre, and never expressed any remorse.