Demjanjuk faces 27,900 charges

SUSPECTED Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk was yesterday formally charged by German prosecutors with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder.
After more than 30 years of legal manoeuvring, the 89-year-old retired car worker, more recently based in Ohio, will now finally face trial although no date has yet been set.

Prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk – who was deported from the US in May – of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a Nazi prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.

Doctors cleared the way for formal charges earlier this month, determining that Demjanjuk was fit to stand trial as long as court sessions do not exceed two 90-minute periods per day.

Nazi-era documents obtained by US justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor death camp and information that he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, which was also in occupied Poland.

German prosecutors also have a transfer rota that lists Demjanjuk by name and birthday and also says he was at Sobibor. There are statements from former guards who remembered him being there.

Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, welcomed the filing of formal charges.

"This is obviously an important step forward," Zuroff said. "We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment."

"The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator," he said.

The trial represents the culmination of a legal saga that began in 1977 and has involved courts and government officials from at least five countries on three continents.

Demjanjuk insists he is innocent and fought bitterly against efforts to strip him of his US citizenship and later deport him.

The case dates from 1977, when the Justice Department moved to revoke Demjanjuk's US citizenship, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard.

Demjanjuk had been tried in Israel after accusations surfaced that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland.

He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Demjanjuk's case is an example of how difficult it has become to bring alleged Nazi war criminals to trial more than 60 years since the end of the war.

Wartime survivor Charlotte Knobloch said: "It is a race against time. It is intolerable to watch how a suspected Nazi war criminal, who knew no mercy for his victims, seeks sympathy and compares his deportation to torture."

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/international/Demjanjuk-faces-27900-charges.5455508.jp

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