A 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was handed a five-year prison sentence yesterday, becoming the oldest person to be jailed for war crimes relating to the Holocaust. 

Josef Schuetz was found guilty of being an accessory to murder while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.

Judge Udo Lechtermann sentenced him to five years behind bars following the trial which started last October at the Neuruppin Regional Court in Germany. 

Mr Schuetz protested his innocence and insisted: “I don’t know why I am here” as the hearing closed on Monday. 

He claimed to have worked as a farm labourer near Pasewalk in north-eastern Germany during the period in question.

But prosecutors said he “knowingly and willingly” participated in the murders of 3,518 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp. 

The court found that it was proven that he worked as an SS guard at between 1942 and 1945.

Due to his age, it is unlikely that Mr Schuetz will serve any of his sentence, which his lawyers said they would appeal.