German Prosecutors File Charges against Demjanjuk
Public prosecutors in Munich have filed charges against John Demjanjuk on more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. Officials allege the 88-year-old, who lives in a Cleveland suburb, was a guard at the Sobibor death camp.
In what could become one of the final war crimes trials related to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany in World War II, German prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges against alleged death camp guard John Demjanjuk. Accused of having worked in the Sobibor camp in present-day Poland, the 88-year-old has been charged with more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. Prosecutors will seek his extradition from the US, where he lives in a suburb of Cleveland with his wife.
The new charges are just the latest in a long legal saga centered on Demjanjuk. Originally from Ukraine, Demjanjuk claimed that he served in the Soviet army during the war and was captured by German troops in 1942 and interned in a prisoner of war camp. He gained citizenship in the US in 1958, but was extradited to Israel in the mid-1980s and convicted of being the infamous camp guard at Treblinka known as Ivan the Terrible.
He was freed in the early 1990s after it became clear that he was not, in fact, Ivan the Terrible and returned to the US. It wasn't long, however, before additional evidence arose implicating Demjanjuk for having been one of some 5,000 so-called Trawnikis, foreign volunteers who helped out the Nazis with the slaughter of the Jews in the death camps. He fought for years against a US court ruling allowing his deportation, but the US Supreme Court affirmed that decision by rejecting an appeals petition last year.
The public prosecutor's office in Munich said that further steps to bring Demjanjuk to Germany will be taken after close consultation with the government in Berlin. As soon as he arrives, he will be officially charged before the court.
Read entire article at Spiegel
In what could become one of the final war crimes trials related to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany in World War II, German prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges against alleged death camp guard John Demjanjuk. Accused of having worked in the Sobibor camp in present-day Poland, the 88-year-old has been charged with more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. Prosecutors will seek his extradition from the US, where he lives in a suburb of Cleveland with his wife.
The new charges are just the latest in a long legal saga centered on Demjanjuk. Originally from Ukraine, Demjanjuk claimed that he served in the Soviet army during the war and was captured by German troops in 1942 and interned in a prisoner of war camp. He gained citizenship in the US in 1958, but was extradited to Israel in the mid-1980s and convicted of being the infamous camp guard at Treblinka known as Ivan the Terrible.
He was freed in the early 1990s after it became clear that he was not, in fact, Ivan the Terrible and returned to the US. It wasn't long, however, before additional evidence arose implicating Demjanjuk for having been one of some 5,000 so-called Trawnikis, foreign volunteers who helped out the Nazis with the slaughter of the Jews in the death camps. He fought for years against a US court ruling allowing his deportation, but the US Supreme Court affirmed that decision by rejecting an appeals petition last year.
The public prosecutor's office in Munich said that further steps to bring Demjanjuk to Germany will be taken after close consultation with the government in Berlin. As soon as he arrives, he will be officially charged before the court.