BERLIN — A decades-long hunt for Aribert Heim, a Nazi concentration camp doctor, has officially come to a close, German authorities said Friday, after they determined that the man known as Dr. Death for his unnecessary operations had died in Egypt in 1992.
A regional court in Baden-Baden, Heim's last known residence in Germany, said it had suspended the criminal investigation because ''no doubts remained'' that the fugitive had died of cancer in Cairo in 1992.
The New York Times and the German television station ZDF reported in 2009 that Heim had escaped justice by hiding in North Africa. An old dusty briefcase full of letters, handwritten notes about the case against him, and medical records corroborated the accounts of Egyptians who knew him there.
Investigators established that the documents were real and had belonged to Heim but could not prove conclusively that he was dead. Witnesses said he had died after a long struggle with rectal cancer. At the same time, they said he had been buried in a common grave, so that nearly 20 years after his death, neither DNA nor dental records could be used to confirm his death.