Most Wanted Nazi Converted to Islam, Supposedly Died in Egypt

There's a stunner. A Nazi converting to Islam. You could say the two ideologies share a similar passion.

Documents have surfaced in Egypt showing the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminal, concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim, died in Cairo in 1992, Germany's ZDF television and The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The report said Heim was living under a pseudonym and had converted to Islam by the time of his death from intestinal cancer.

ZDF said that in a joint effort with the New York Times, it located a passport, application for a residence permit, bank slips, personal letters and medical papers — in all more than 100 documents — left behind by Heim in a briefcase in the hotel room where he lived under the name Tarek Hussein Farid.

Though he did not know Heim's real identity, Egyptian dentist Tarek Abdelmoneim el Rifai said he knew him through his father, Abdelmoneim el Rifai, 88, who was Heim's dentist in Cairo.

He told the AP on Wednesday that he only met Heim a few times, 20 years ago, but confirmed that he knew of his death.

"He died in 1992. I didn't know that he was a doctor and that he is the most wanted Nazi war criminal. I am surprised," he said in a telephone interview.

"He introduced himself to my father as a German and I know that he converted to Islam and changed his name."

When he met Heim two decades ago at his father's clinic, el Rifai said he had the impression he was on the run.

"The only thing I knew about him is that he fled from the Jews," el Rifai said.

Just one little problem with this story.

One of the most wanted Nazi war criminals may have fled the Costa Brava for another area of Spain or Denmark to escape an intense search by Spanish police.

Investigators believe that Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor, now 91, who injected hundreds of prisoners with lethal cocktails at Mauthausen in Austria, may have already fled to the Costa del Sol, in southern Spain, or Denmark, according to local press reports.

Spain's organised crime and fugitive units have conducted "dozens" of searches in the Costa Brava after receiving a tip from German police, the newspaper El Mundo reported. He is thought to have lived in the resort town of Roses for years. In June, police hoped he would surface to celebrate his 91st birthday.

Investigators tracking Dr Heim have had leads in various parts of Spain. Recently, police have focused their investigations on two artists living in Palafrugell, a town in Girona. The artists, a couple originally from France and Italy, allegedly received German bank transfers of €300,000 (£205,000) from one of Dr Heim's sons, El Mundo said. Police are trying to determine whether they helped hide Dr Heim and acted as a front to sustain him economically - or simply sold their works of art.