Hungarian Nazi war crime suspect Sandor Kepiro was found not guilty by a Budapest court Monday of ordering the rounding up and execution of over 30 Jews and Serbs in Serbia in 1942.
The prosecution had demanded at least a prison sentence for Kepiro, 97, who until his arrest topped the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most wanted Nazi criminals.
However, the defence insisted there was no tangible evidence that Kepiro had carried out war crimes, while the prosecution's case rested heavily on old testimonies and verdicts from previous trials in the 1940s.
Kepiro, who appeared in court on Monday but looked poorly, insisted in a last statement before the verdict was read out: "I am innocent, I never killed, I never robbed."
The reasoning for the verdict was to be read out over two days, Monday and Tuesday, given the frailty of the defendant.