The chief investigator pursuing Alois Brunner, one of the world’s most wanted German Nazi war criminals, has told the BBC that he is “99 per cent sure” that he died four years ago in Syria.

Alois Brunner, the man who sent the Jews of Salonica to Auschwitz, was also known as ‘the butcher of Salonica’.

“We cannot prove it forensically, but we are certain that is the case,” Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff said.

SS captain Brunner, who would now be 102, is accused of deporting more than 128,000 Jews to death camps in WWII.

For many years there has been uncertainty as to whether he is dead.

The Austrian-born SS chief was once described by Adolf Eichmann – the architect of the ‘Final Solution’ – as one of his best men.

Eichmann dispatched Brunner wherever he felt round-ups of Jews were proceeding too slowly.