Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner 'died in Syria squalor'

Brunner (pictured) was right-hand man to the Gestapo's 'technician of death' Adolf Eichmann

One of the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals died in 2001 aged 89 after spending more than a decade incarcerated in a dilapidated Damascus basement, a French magazine has said. 

The Revue XXI magazine reported that Austrian-born SS commander Alois Brunner spent his last years living in squalid conditions.  It said he remained a fervent anti-Semite right up to his death.

French lawyer Serge Klarsfeld - seen here during a press conference about Alois Brunner in 1985 - has welcomed news of the Nazi's death

Brunner is accused of deporting more than 128,000 Jews to death camps. He was in charge of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris where Jews rounded up in France were held before being sent to the death camps. An estimated 345 children were among his victims.
For many years there has been uncertainty as to whether Brunner - born in 1912 - is still alive, although the chief investigator pursuing him told the BBC in 2014 that he believed Brunner died in 2010 in Damascus.

Brunner is believed to have fled to Syria in the 1950s from West Germany, reportedly serving later as an adviser to the Syrian government on torture tactics before being shunned by the authorities.