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Germany charges former Nazi guard and US resident with accessory to murder

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] German prosecutors announced Wednesday that they have filed charges against former Nazi concentration camp guard and Ohio resident John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk is charged with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor concentration camp, where more than 260,000 people were executed in the gas chambers. A former Soviet solider, Demanjuk is accused of volunteering to work at Sobidor following his capture by Germans. He allegedly worked at Sobidor for much of its existence, from March to September 1943. The German government will now seek Demanjuk's extradition from the US. Demjanjuk has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In May 2008, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey, ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demajanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ordering his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Demjanjuk's petition for review in January 2008. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court which found that he was a notorious guard from Treblinka nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible." The sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, and Demjanjuk returned to the US.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 11, 2009 (boomark / email).