A German court on Tuesday convicted Irmgard Furchner, a 97-year-old woman, of being an accessory to the murder of over 11,000 people for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp during World War II.

The Itzehoe state court gave her a two-year suspended sentence, German news agency dpa reported. The ruling was in line with what prosecutors had sought; the defense had called for her acquittal.

She was sentenced under juvenile law because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes.

Furchner was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp function.

She was alleged to have "aided and abetted those in charge of the camp in the systematic killing of those imprisoned there between June 1943 and April 1945 in her function as a stenographer and typist in the camp commandant's office."

Although she was a civilian worker, the judge agreed she was fully aware of what was going on at the camp, BBC reported.

The defendant tried to skip the start of her trial in September 2021 but was later caught by police and placed in detention for several days.

Defense lawyers have asked for their client to be acquitted, arguing that the evidence hadn't shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability. 

In her closing statement, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been at Stutthof at the time.

Some 65,000 people died of starvation and disease or in the gas chamber at Stutthof, near Gdansk in today's Poland. 

(With input from agencies)

(Cover: Defendant Irmgard Furchner, a former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, sits next to her lawyers as she waits for the continuation of her court trial in Itzehoe, northern Germany, November 15, 2022. /CFP)