The third most wanted Nazi,  Samuel Kunz who was a German but  born in the former Soviet Union, has died a natural death in Bonn at the age of 89 before facing trial in February for killing Jews in the Holocaust.

A senior guard at the Belzec extermination camp, he was indicted for murdering 10 people and aiding and abetting the massacre of nearly half a million others.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center reacted to Kunz’s death angrily, charging that a “flawed prosecution policy, which ignored virtually any Holocaust perpetrator who was not an officer, enabled Kunz to escape justice until he was indicted last July.

"It was only the recent, long-awaited change in this policy which led to Kunz's indictment and the opportunity to hold him accountable for his crimes," said Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Center in Jerusalem.

Kunz also was scheduled to appear as a witness n the trial of John Demjanjuk, was from the United States to Munich last May and now is on trial.

Kunz had admitted he worked at the extermination camp, and told Der Spiegel last year, "It was clear to us all that Jews were killed there and were later burned too. We could smell it every day." However, he denied being personally involved in the exterminations, and he remained free until he was charged nearly a year ago.

 During World War II, Kunz was captured by the Germans and agreed to work with the Nazis instead of being taken as prisoner. After being trained by the SS, along with Demjanjuk, he was sent to Belzec.  

Evidence from the Nazi era has revealed that victims were brought to Belzec in trains, were forced to undress themselves, and then were locked in gas chambers, where their agony lasted for up to 20 minutes before they died.

Kunz allegedly killed shot and killed eight Jews after they were forced to lie down in a trench with their faces to the ground. He also was charged with killing two others who had fled from the death trains.

After the war, He was awarded German citizenship and worked as a carpenter for the government despite several interrogations concerning the Belzec death camp.