Accused Nazi Guard Demjanjuk Fit to Stand Trial

by stevesmys | July 3, 2009 at 10:33 am

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Alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk has been declared fit to stand trial by German prosecutors.

The 89-year-old, born Ivan Demjanjuk, is accused of aiding in the deaths of 29,000 Jews at the Sobibr camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, where he worked as a guard.

The Ukranian native said he had no involvement in the Holocaust, claiming he was a Red Army Soldier who spent WWII as a Nazi prisoner of war.

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

Demjanjuk was sentenced to death for war crimes in 1988 by an Israeli tribunal after he was identified by witnesses as "Ivan the Terrible" – a notorious prison guard at the concentration camp.

But the Israeli Supreme Court overturned his conviction, when new evidence emerged suggesting he was not the same guard.

The former autoworker was deported from his home in Ohio in May after losing an appeal to stay his deportation. Demjanjuk says he is gravely ill and suffers from severe spinal, hip and leg pain, a bone marrow disorder, kidney disease, anemia, kidney stones, arthritis, gout and spinal deterioration.

His son, John Demjanjuk Jr. said that German doctors have determined his father has about 16 months to live, due to his incurable leukemic bone marrow disease.

"With less than [two] years for my father to live, a career-seeking German prosecutor is hastily pressing forward, indicative of a 100 per cent politically motivated effort to blame Ukrainians and Europeans for the crimes of the Germans," Demjanjuk Jr. wrote.