Alleged Nazi Faces Double Jeopardy in Germany
The legal saga of John Demjanjuk neared its final chapter as prosecutors set the stage for one of Germany's highest-profile war crime trials in years — formally charging the retired U.S. auto worker Monday with involvement in the murder of 27,900 people at a Nazi death camp.
The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was once sentenced in Israel to death, then acquitted by the country's Supreme Court in 1993 of being the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp. Now the 89-year-old stands accused of being part of the death machine at another camp in Poland — Sobibor — and a Germany more than 60 years removed from World War II will revisit the demons of its past once again.
Nearly 64 years after the end of World War II, an accused Nazi concentration camp guard is facing formal charges at his war crimes hearing in Munich. On Monday, German prosecutors charged retired U.S. auto worker John Demjanjuk, here in 2006, as an accessory in the murders of 27,900 people at a Nazi death camp.
Filing charges typically takes several months in Germany. Monday's move underlined authorities' determination to move forward with efforts to exact justice for Nazi-era atrocities.
Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., described the charges as "a farce" and raised anew concerns over whether the 89-year-old's frail health would allow him a fair trial. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, but at his age, he is not expected to survive even the shortest sentence.
"As long as my father remains alive, we will defend his innocence as he has never hurt anyone anywhere," he told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "They have hurried to justify the deportation and the violation of his legal and human rights with sensational charges but it is all a farce and could never withstand the test of litigation."
Demjanjuk Jr. is suffering from an incurable leukemic bone marrow disease. But Doctors earlier this month determined that the ill Demjanjuk would still stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day. He has been in custody in Munich since his arrival May 12.
Elderly, frail Nazi suspects with health problems have stood trial in the past: in 2001, Anton Malloth, an 89-year-old former guard at the Theresienstadt fortress in then-occupied Czechoslovakia, sat through his trial in Munich in a wheelchair, connected to an IV drip. He was sentenced to life in prison for beating a Jewish inmate to death, and died a year later.
Legal wrangling over Demjanjuk and his alleged role in the Nazi death machine goes back to the 1970s. Demjanjuk, who became a U.S. citizen after the war, had his citizenship revoked in 1981 after the U.S. Justice Department alleged that he hid his past as "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at Treblinka. He was extradited to Israel, where he was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity. "Experts" testified that his Nazi photo ID was real and eye witnesses swore he was Ivan the Terrible, a brutal killer of Jews. However, the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court after evidence emerged from Soviet archives that proved "Ivan" was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.
Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored but again revoked in 2002, based on new Justice Department evidence claiming he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials. A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. (The same thing happened in 1981.)
Demjanjuk maintains that he was a Red Army soldier who spent the time as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.
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 Sobibor and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Nazi-occupied Poland. U.S. and German experts have again declared the ID genuine, although this time no eye witnesses have stepped forward to swear they could "never forget his face" like they did in the first trail.
No one has addressed the statistical likely hood that a man accused of mass murder, convicted, sentenced to death, then freed when it was proven that the evidence and eye witness testimony against him was false, could possibility be ANOTHER mass murder at ANOTHER death camp. It is possible, however, the odds would be astronomical. It is much more probable and likely that Justice Department officials were embarrassed that they shipped a US citizen overseas to face certain death in Israel on shaky evidence, then when it was proven he wasn't a sensational mass murderer after all, they scrambled to find a similar accusation to cover up their earlier incompetence. And why isn't anyone pointing out that trying Demjanjuk twice for essentially the same crime (under different aliases), constitutes double jeopardy?
Given Germany's recent past of holding trials for dying former soldiers in wheelchairs with IV drips, these type cases seem more about delivering revenge, rather than justice. Whether the accused was ever really a Nazi or a killer seems less important than showing how angry modern Germany is about their past. Demjanjuk WILL be found guilty, just as he was found guilty in Israel, because the outrage would be too great if any other verdict is delivered. But this time, he will be too old to live long enough to be proven innocent again. Sadly, such show trails don't really prove how enlightened modern Germany has become since the days of the Nazis, but rather, how little the public's thirst for blood has changed.
See Chick's THE FRAME UP.
The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was once sentenced in Israel to death, then acquitted by the country's Supreme Court in 1993 of being the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp. Now the 89-year-old stands accused of being part of the death machine at another camp in Poland — Sobibor — and a Germany more than 60 years removed from World War II will revisit the demons of its past once again.
Nearly 64 years after the end of World War II, an accused Nazi concentration camp guard is facing formal charges at his war crimes hearing in Munich. On Monday, German prosecutors charged retired U.S. auto worker John Demjanjuk, here in 2006, as an accessory in the murders of 27,900 people at a Nazi death camp.
Filing charges typically takes several months in Germany. Monday's move underlined authorities' determination to move forward with efforts to exact justice for Nazi-era atrocities.
Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., described the charges as "a farce" and raised anew concerns over whether the 89-year-old's frail health would allow him a fair trial. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, but at his age, he is not expected to survive even the shortest sentence.
"As long as my father remains alive, we will defend his innocence as he has never hurt anyone anywhere," he told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "They have hurried to justify the deportation and the violation of his legal and human rights with sensational charges but it is all a farce and could never withstand the test of litigation."
Demjanjuk Jr. is suffering from an incurable leukemic bone marrow disease. But Doctors earlier this month determined that the ill Demjanjuk would still stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day. He has been in custody in Munich since his arrival May 12.
Elderly, frail Nazi suspects with health problems have stood trial in the past: in 2001, Anton Malloth, an 89-year-old former guard at the Theresienstadt fortress in then-occupied Czechoslovakia, sat through his trial in Munich in a wheelchair, connected to an IV drip. He was sentenced to life in prison for beating a Jewish inmate to death, and died a year later.
Legal wrangling over Demjanjuk and his alleged role in the Nazi death machine goes back to the 1970s. Demjanjuk, who became a U.S. citizen after the war, had his citizenship revoked in 1981 after the U.S. Justice Department alleged that he hid his past as "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at Treblinka. He was extradited to Israel, where he was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity. "Experts" testified that his Nazi photo ID was real and eye witnesses swore he was Ivan the Terrible, a brutal killer of Jews. However, the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court after evidence emerged from Soviet archives that proved "Ivan" was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.
Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored but again revoked in 2002, based on new Justice Department evidence claiming he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials. A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. (The same thing happened in 1981.)
Demjanjuk maintains that he was a Red Army soldier who spent the time as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.
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 Sobibor and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Nazi-occupied Poland. U.S. and German experts have again declared the ID genuine, although this time no eye witnesses have stepped forward to swear they could "never forget his face" like they did in the first trail.
No one has addressed the statistical likely hood that a man accused of mass murder, convicted, sentenced to death, then freed when it was proven that the evidence and eye witness testimony against him was false, could possibility be ANOTHER mass murder at ANOTHER death camp. It is possible, however, the odds would be astronomical. It is much more probable and likely that Justice Department officials were embarrassed that they shipped a US citizen overseas to face certain death in Israel on shaky evidence, then when it was proven he wasn't a sensational mass murderer after all, they scrambled to find a similar accusation to cover up their earlier incompetence. And why isn't anyone pointing out that trying Demjanjuk twice for essentially the same crime (under different aliases), constitutes double jeopardy?
Given Germany's recent past of holding trials for dying former soldiers in wheelchairs with IV drips, these type cases seem more about delivering revenge, rather than justice. Whether the accused was ever really a Nazi or a killer seems less important than showing how angry modern Germany is about their past. Demjanjuk WILL be found guilty, just as he was found guilty in Israel, because the outrage would be too great if any other verdict is delivered. But this time, he will be too old to live long enough to be proven innocent again. Sadly, such show trails don't really prove how enlightened modern Germany has become since the days of the Nazis, but rather, how little the public's thirst for blood has changed.
See Chick's THE FRAME UP.
posted by chickcomics | 10:41 PM
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