A German court on Friday convicted a former SS guard for complicity in the mass murders at the Nazi-run Auschwitz death camp, capping what is expected to be one of the last Holocaust trials.

"The accused is sentenced to five years' jail for accessory to murder in 170,000 cases," the court ruled in the case of 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, saying he was "aware that in Auschwitz, innocent people were murdered everyday in gas chambers".