RAVENSBURG, Germany, April 3 (Reuters) - A court sentenced an ex-SS officer to 12 years in jail on Tuesday for the World War Two murder of seven Jewish prisoners in what has been billed as probably Germany's last major Nazi war crimes trial.

The state court in the southern town of Ravensburg found 83-year-old Julius Viel guilty of shooting the seven prisoners dead as they dug trenches in early 1945 near the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic.

Public prosecutors had demanded a life sentence for the murders, while Viel's defence called for an acquittal, saying their client was stationed in Vienna at the time of the killings and accusing prosecution witnesses of lying.

Viel, who became a respected journalist on regional south German newspapers after World War Two and was even awarded a government order of merit in 1983, said the cancer from which he suffered meant he would likely die in jail.

"I'm sorry for my wife's sake," Viel, who gave little visible reaction as the verdict was read, told journalists afterwards.

German media have dubbed the case "the last Nazi war crimes trial." While German investigators are known to be considering trying one other case, many potential accused have already died or are too old or ill for prosecution.

Summing up, Judge Hermann Winkler said the court followed established European Union and German legal precepts not to hand down a life sentence because of the length of time -- over half a century -- between the crime and the sentencing.

However Winkler said Viel's exemplary life after the war did not reduce the enormity of his original crime.

"At the beginning of this life's journey, there were seven deaths," he noted. "The killing oflgaeu region in October 1999 after retired Canadian professor Adalbert Lallier broke years of silence to say he witnessed the killings as a young recruit.

The court rejected the argument of Viel's lawyers that Lallier had fabricated his testimony to draw attention from his own Nazi past, accusing him of perjuring himself in court.

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"I'm sorry for my wife's sake," Viel, who gave little visible reaction as the verdict was read, told journalists afterwards.

German media have dubbed the case "the last Nazi war crimes trial." While German investigators are known to be considering trying one other case, many potential accused have already died or are too old or ill for prosecution.

Yet US Nazi-hunter Steven Rambam, who first recorded the testimony from Canadian professor Adalbert Lallier which led to Viel's conviction, said the quest to bring Nazis to justice must continue.

"The conviction is a great moral victory, but we can not lose sight of the fact that there are other Nazi war criminals still free in Germany," Rambam said.