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LONDON, Mar 10, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- British media baron Robert Maxwell was being investigated for war crimes when he mysteriously fell from his yacht and drowned 15 years ago, a report reveals.
A Metropolitan Police file released to the British newspaper Independent shows that just weeks before Maxwell died detectives began questioning members of his army platoon and were preparing a case for prosecution, the Independent said. The inquiry involved the murder of an unarmed German civilian during the war.
Revelations that Maxwell, who served as a captain in the British Army, knew he faced a possible life sentence if convicted lent support to the theory that he took his own life. He may have known that if he was found guilty, he would be the first Briton to be prosecuted for war crimes under a newly enacted law.
Many people, including members of his own family, believe he took his own life. It did not emerge until after his death that he had plundered the pension funds of the Mirror Group to bail out his ailing media empire.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
