The deputy chief prosecutor of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, Gabriel Bach, died on Friday at the age of 94, according to Israeli media reports. The cause of death was not given.
The trial of Eichmann - the organizer of the mass murder of millions of European Jews - initiated by Bach and other lawyers began in Jerusalem in April 1961.
The year before, Israeli agents had kidnapped Adolf Hitler's "Angel of Death" from Argentina. Eichmann was one of the main perpetrators of the deportation of European Jews to the death camps. He was executed after his conviction.
The trial caused a worldwide sensation and is regarded as the trigger for Germany's coming to terms with the crimes of the Nazi era.
During his lifetime, Bach praised the consistent prosecution of Nazi-era criminals in modern-day Germany.
Bach, who was a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, also campaigned for a rapprochement between Israel and his German homeland.
He grew up in Berlin and fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938. Bach arrived in what was then Palestine in 1940.
He later studied law in London, worked at the public prosecutor's office from 1953 and was a judge at the Supreme Court in Israel from 1982 to 1997.
Bach was also a life-long fan of the German football team Schalke. The team once surprised him during one of his visits to Germany by giving him shirts with his name on them.
The 94-year-old is survived by his wife Ruth, children and grandchildren.
