On this day: Josef Mengele’s body is found

Four decades after the end of the Holocaust, the search for one of its most notorious war criminals continued. Known as the "angel of death", Josef Mengele spent the war performing inhumane and brutal "experiments" on prisoners in Auschwitz concentration camp, twins in particular.

A trial began in February 1985, but he was not present in court. He had fled Germany in 1953 and he was believed to be in Paraguay, although there were also reports that he had visited the United States.

In June, on the orders of the Brazilian authorities, a body was exhumed at a cemetery in Enbu, near Sao Paulo. It was claimed that the corpse was that of Mengele, buried under the name Wolfgang Gerhard six years earlier.

The news was met with suspicion by many, including Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and forensic testing took place. Mengele's son Rolf released a statement in which he said he had "no doubts whatsoever" of who the body was. He said his father had died in 1979 and that he had known about his death at the time.