Recent Event Highlights: Suspect Faces Second Nazi Trial, Demjanjuk to face trial in Germany, Germany Issues Arrest Warrant for Nazi Guard Suspect, Germany Issues Arrest Warrant for Nazi Guard Suspect, and 2 more...
Created by dipity on Mar 11, 2009
Last updated: 10/31/10 at 05:34 AM
Munich - John Demjanjuk was brought by ambulance to a Munich court on Monday to face charges of being an accessory to the murder of 27900 Jews at a Nazi death camp, opening the final chapter of some 30 years of efforts to prosecute the retired Ohio autoworker. The trial of the 89-year-old opened with Demjanjuk's attorney filing a motion against the judge and prosecutors, accusing them of bias. Lawyer Ulrich Busch charged that the case should never have been brought to trial. He cited cases in which Germans who were assigned to the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland, where prosecutors allege Demjanjuk served as a guard, were acquitted. "How can you say that those who gave the orders were innocent ... and the one who received the orders is guilty?" Busch told the court. "There is a moral and legal double standard being applied today." Demjanjuk was deported in May from the United States to Germany, and has been in custody since then. He could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. A doctor who examined Demjanjuk two hours before he was wheeled into the courtroom, covered in a light blue blanket and wearing a baseball cap, said his vital signs were all stable. Demjanjuk's family says he is terminally ill. His trial has been limited to two 90-minute sessions per day. Demjanjuk refused to answer the judge's questions about his personal details. He repeatedly opened his mouth, apparently wincing in pain. Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk, sitting in a wheelchair ...
murder of my mother and my eldest brother." Monday's hearing in this court house won't be the first time Demjanjuk has stood trial on Nazi war crimes. In the 1980's he was convicted and sentenced to death in Israel accused of being Ivan The Terrible - a notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp. But Israel's Supreme Court later overturned the conviction. He was freed and returned to America. Demjanjuk will deny any involvement in the Holocaust when the trial gets underway, but ...
years. Demjanjuk, a former Ford factory worker in Cleveland, Ohio, has twice been stripped of his US citizenship, sentenced to death by an Israeli court as "Ivan the Terrible", a monstrous figure operating the gas chambers at a Nazi death camp, had the conviction quashed on grounds of potential mistaken identity, and has now been identified as an alleged guard at a different Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland. German officials were preparing an extradition request yesterday to ...
role in the Holocaust. He was stripped of his US citizenship and extradited to Israel. In 1988 a court there sentenced him to death after Holocaust survivors identified him as "Ivan the Terrible", a notoriously sadistic guard at Treblinka, where 870 000 people died. But Israel's highest court later overturned the conviction and ruled that Demjanjuk was not "Ivan". He returned to the United States - but US officials stripped him of his citizenship again in 2002, saying he'd worked at three ...
accused of being an accessory in the killings of Jews between March and September 1943 at the Sobibor death camp, now in Poland. Prosecutors in the German city of Munich stated they want to extradite Demjanjuk. Born in Ukraine, Demjanjuk denies any involvement in war crimes. After he was accused in the 1970s of being "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at the Treblinka death camp, Demjanjuk was stripped of his US citizenship and first extradited to Israel in 1986. He was sentenced to death in ...
accused of being an accessory in the killings of Jews between March and September 1943 at the Sobibor death camp, now in Poland. Prosecutors in the German city of Munich stated they want to extradite Demjanjuk. Born in Ukraine, Demjanjuk denies any involvement in war crimes. After he was accused in the 1970s of being "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at the Treblinka death camp, Demjanjuk was stripped of his US citizenship and first extradited to Israel in 1986. He was sentenced to death in ...
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