World War II

04/08/2009

Nazi Suspect

Alleged Death Camp Guard Battles Extradition

German prosecutors accuse John Demjanjuk of assisting in the murder of 29,000 people at the Nazi death camp Sobibor. With a letter to authorities, his German lawyer has staged a last-ditch attempt to prevent his aging client from standing trial in Germany.

John Demjanjuk, the 89-year-old man originally from Ukraine accused of helping to send thousands of people into the Nazi gas chambers is due to face a court in Munich. But his German lawyer Ulrich Busch is doing what he can to thwart Demjanjuk's extradition.

In a letter sent to the German Justice Ministry, Busch urged officials to drop plans to send his client from the United States to Germany. "This needs to be stopped immediately. The American authorities will be informed to the effect there is no question of a transfer of my client to Germany," read the document seen by SPIEGEL.

Busch, who took on the defense of Demjanjuk earlier this week, agued his client's basic human rights would be contravened by forcing him to Germany where he would face a life of "permanent isolation." That echoed statements from Demjanjuk's American Lawyer John Broadley who also argued against the extradition order on human rights grounds, describing Demjanjuk as frail and in poor health.

Germany had wanted the suspected concentration camp guard in the country on Monday, but court actions have put the brakes on the plan.

Busch also argued that Germany shouldn't accept deported individuals when it was clear that they would immediately face trial. In such cases, Busch said, individuals should be officially extradited, a drawn-out process which could last for months -- and would win vital time for his client.

Demjanjuk moved to America after World War II and lives near Cleveland. In 1988 he was convicted by an Israeli court of crimes at the Treblinka concentration camp in the present-day eastern Poland. But an Israeli high court acquitted him in 1993 after doubts arose as to whether he had actually served at Treblinka.

New documents have since surfaced which appear to place Demjanjuk at Sobibor at the height of the Holocaust. He has long fought being sent to Germany for trial. Earlier this month, his son John Demjanjuk, Jr., personally brought a plea for clemency from his father to the office responsible for the accused man's deportation.

But political will has firmed behind the Demjanjuk trial. The Office of Special Investigations, a section of the US Department of Justice devoted to human-rights violations and, in particular, Nazi criminals, has steadily moved to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship. Now all the formalities have been resolved and the US promised to provide a temporary identity card for Demjanjuk. It said it would send a doctor as well as an immigration officer with him on the plane to Munich.

Last month the Bavarian state public prosecutor's office issued a warrant for Demjanjuk's arrest, opening the way for the senior citizen's extradition. The warrant accuses him of assisting in the murder of 29,000 prisoners who died in the Sobibór concentration camp, where Demjanjuk is alleged to have served as a guard.

Demjanjuk has refuted the charges from the outset. He insists that he has never worked for the Germans as a guard at a death camp.

jas -- with wire reports

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