Aachen -- The trial of an 88-year-old former Nazi SS soldier, who has admitted gunning down three Dutch resistance fighters in 1944, began Wednesday in one of Germany's last Nazi war crimes cases.

The trial, in the western city of Aachen, was adjourned shortly after it started, however, when the defence team of the accused, Heinrich Boere, demanded the public prosecutor be replaced. It will resume on Monday.

Dutch-born Boere appeared in the courtroom confined to a wheelchair, wearing glasses with his grey hair cropped short. He was inattentive and appeared somewhat lethargic during the proceedings.

Boere has already confessed several times to the slayings in the Dutch towns of Breda, Voorschoten and Wassenaar, saying he was following orders.

"Yes, I got rid of them," he told Focus magazine last year. "It was not difficult. You just had to bend a finger."

He told Spiegel magazine two years ago that they were told they were killing "terrorists,” adding: "We thought we were doing the right thing."

There was a brief moment of courtroom drama as two suspected neo-Nazis entered the viewing gallery, prompting chants of "Nazis out" and "Facists get out of here."

The accused, who is on the list of the top ten most wanted Nazis drawn up by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, was part of an SS hit squad codenamed "Silver Pine" that hunted and executed Dutch resistance fighters.

He faces life behind bars if convicted.

The son of one of the trio killed, 76-year-old Teun de Groot, who was in court as a co-plaintiff, expressed his relief that the trial had now begun. "Today I have achieved what I have been hoping for many years," he said.

The head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Efraim Zuroff, said the trial was "a very strong signal that the passing of time does not diminish the guilt of the criminal and that someone who murdered innocent civilians should not be protected because he is old."

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