One of the world's most wanted war criminals, the reputed top lieutenant of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann, is presumed to have died at least four years ago in Syria, where he lived under government protection, according to a leading Nazi hunter.

Alois Brunner, an Austrian SS officer, was found responsible for the World War II deportation of 125,500 European Jews to Nazi death camps.

He escaped at the end of the war from Germany to Egypt and arrived in Syria in 1954, said Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel office.