PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An 89-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect has died, the night before a judge ruled that he should be extradited to Germany to face trial, his lawyer said Wednesday. 
 
 FILE - This undated file image shows the main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I, Poland, which was liberated by the Russians in January 1945. Writing over the gate reads: "Arbeit macht frei"... (Associated Press) 
 
 Johann Breyer died Tuesday night at a Philadelphia hospital, attorney Dennis Boyle said Wednesday, the same day that U.S. Magistrate Timothy Rice approved the extradition request. The ruling would still have been subject to a final U.S. government review. 
 
 Breyer was hospitalized Saturday. His lawyer said his health had deteriorated but he didn't know the cause of death. 
 
 The U.S. attorney's office said it didn't have any information yet on Breyer's status. 
 
 Rice had found probable cause that "Breyer, the individual before this court, is the same person sought for aiding and abetting murder in Germany." 
 
 "No statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder," he wrote. 
 
 Breyer, a retired tool-and-die maker, was being held on allegations stemming from his suspected service as an SS guard at Auschwitz during World War II. 
 
 U.S. marshals arrested him in June outside his home in northeast Philadelphia. He was facing charges of aiding in the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children at a Nazi death camp. 
 
 Breyer claimed he was unaware of the massive slaughter at Auschwitz and then that he did not participate in it, but "the German allegations belie his claims," the judge wrote. 
 
 "Given Breyer's role as an elite S.S. armed guard at a camp designed and operated almost exclusively as a killing center for Jews, Germany has established probable cause of Breyer's complicity in the mass murders at Auschwitz." 
 
 German authorities in the Bavarian town of Weiden issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest in June 2013. The warrant accuses Breyer of 158 counts of accessory to murder — one count for each trainload of victims brought to the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland from May to October 1944, when Breyer was allegedly a guard there. 
 
 Breyer told The Associated Press in a 2012 interview that while he was a guard at Auschwitz, he was assigned to a part of the camp that was not involved in the slaughter of Jews and others. 
 
 "I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody — and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he told the AP. "I didn't do anything wrong." 
 
 Breyer moved to Philadelphia after World War II and for decades has lived a quiet, middle-class life. He has American citizenship because his mother was born in the U.S.; she later moved to Europe, where Breyer was born. 
 
 In 1992, the U.S. government tried to revoke Breyer's citizenship after discovering his wartime background. The effort became a years-long legal saga and appeared to end with a 2003 decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found Breyer had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it. 
 
 Then he was arrested last month outside his home in northeast Philadelphia based on the 2013 German warrant. Officials say the arrest was delayed for a year because of the complexity of the extradition request. 
 
 His lawyers argued that Breyer should be released on bail pending the extradition hearing because of his frail health. They said he has mild dementia, heart conditions and has suffered strokes in recent years. 
 
 A judge ruled that the federal prison system was capable of caring for Breyer. ||||| A Nazi war crimes suspect from Philadelphia has died a day before a judge approved his extradition to Germany, his lawyer says. 
 
 Johann Breyer, 89, died on Tuesday night at a Philadelphia hospital, his lawyer told the Associated Press news agency. 
 
 He was accused of taking part in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children during his time as an Auschwitz death camp guard. 
 
 A judge issued an order on Wednesday approving a request for Breyer to be extradited to Germany. 
 
 The US government had yet to approve the motion. 
 
 US Magistrate Timothy Rice said in the order there was probable cause that "Breyer, the individual before this court, is the same person sought for aiding and abetting murder in Germany". 
 
 "No statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder," he wrote. 
 
 The US judge also said: "Given Breyer's role as an elite SS armed guard at a camp designed and operated almost exclusively as a killing center for Jews, Germany has established probable cause of Breyer's complicity in the mass murders at Auschwitz." 
 
 In a case that had been building for years, German authorities issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest last year charging him with 158 counts of aiding and abetting the deaths of 216,000 Jews. 
 
 His lawyer said at a hearing last month that Breyer, who walked with a cane, had mild dementia and heart issues. He was being held without bail. 
 
 Breyer - who immigrated to the US in 1952 - acknowledged two years ago that he was an SS guard at Auschwitz in occupied Poland during World War II. 
 
 But he said he was stationed outside the death camp section and had nothing to do with the slaughter. 
 
 He said he was forced to work there as a teenager. 
 
 He told the AP news agency in a 2012 interview: "I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody - and I don't even have a traffic ticket here. I didn't do anything wrong." ||||| PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An 89-year-old Philadelphia man was ordered held without bail Wednesday on a German arrest warrant charging him with aiding and abetting the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp. 
 
 The man, retired toolmaker Johann "Hans" Breyer, was arrested by U.S. authorities Tuesday night. Breyer spent the night in custody and appeared frail during a detention hearing in federal court, wearing an olive green prison jumpsuit and carrying a cane. 
 
 Legal filings unsealed Wednesday in the U.S. indicate the district court in Weiden, Germany, issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest the day before, charging him with 158 counts of complicity in the commission of murder. 
 
 Each count represents a trainload of Nazi prisoners from Hungary, Germany and Czechoslovakia who were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau between May 1944 and October 1944, the documents said. 
 
 Attorney Dennis Boyle argued his client is too infirm to be detained pending a hearing on his possible extradition to Germany. Breyer has mild dementia and heart issues and has previously suffered strokes, Boyle said. 
 
 "Mr. Breyer is not a threat to anyone," said Boyle. "He's not a flight risk." 
 
 But Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice ruled the detention center was equipped to care for Breyer, who appeared to comprehend questions about the nature of the hearing. 
 
 A law enforcement officer also testified Breyer and his elderly wife grasped what was happening during his arrest Tuesday outside their home in northeast Philadelphia. 
 
 "They both understood," deputy marshal Daniel Donnelly said. "It wasn't news to them." 
 
 Breyer has been under investigation by prosecutors in the Bavarian town of Weiden, near where he last lived in Germany. 
 
 Breyer has admitted he was a guard at Auschwitz in occupied Poland during World War II, but has told The Associated Press he was stationed outside of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp part of the complex and had nothing to do with the wholesale slaughter of about 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates. 
 
 Thomas Walther, a former federal prosecutor with the special office that investigates Nazi war crimes in Germany, now represents family members of some of Breyer's alleged victims as co-plaintiffs in the case. He called for a speedy extradition. 
 
 "The German court has to find late justice for the crimes of Breyer and for the victims and their sons and daughters as co-plaintiffs," Walther wrote in an email to the AP. "It is late, but not too late." 
 
 Prosecutors in Weiden could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Their investigation comes after years of failed U.S. efforts to have Breyer stripped of his American citizenship and deported. 
 
 A court ruling in 2003 allowed him to stay in the United States, mainly on the grounds that he had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it. His American citizenship stems from the fact his mother was born in the U.S.; she later moved to Europe, where Breyer was born. 
 
 During Breyer's arrest Tuesday, he asked the marshals to retrieve papers in his home that document his right to stay in the U.S., Donnelly testified. 
 
 Breyer's wife and two grandsons attended the hour-long hearing in Philadelphia on Wednesday. His extradition hearing was scheduled for Aug. 21. 
 
 Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said he hoped there would be no obstacles to Breyer's extradition and trial overseas. 
 
 "Germany deserves credit for doing this — for extending and expanding their efforts and, in a sense, making a final attempt to maximize the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report. Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson
– An 89-year-old Philly man suspected of Nazi war crimes died last night in a local hospital, the AP reports—the same day a judge issued an order to have him extradited to Germany. Former toolmaker Johann Breyer had been arrested in June, and German prosecutors wanted to try him for his role in the murder of more than 200,000 Jews at Auschwitz. The extradition order had been awaiting a final stamp of approval from the US government. Breyer was a US citizen (his mother was born here), and he had repeatedly tried to deflect blame for the death-camp killings, saying that he was forced to be a guard as a teen and that he wasn’t in the section of Auschwitz that murdered prisoners, reports Sky News. The judge who issued the extradition order wasn't buying it, declaring that “no statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder." Breyer had mild dementia, heart problems, and a past history of strokes.