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Germany official denies that deporting accused Nazi guard is torture

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

[JURIST] Bavaria's Secretary of Justice Beate Merk told reporters Saturday that the deportation of Nazi prison camp guard John Demjanjuk, does not amount to torture. Demjanjuk was recently charged with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder by German prosecutors for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor concentration camp. On Friday, he won a ruling in a US immigration court that suspended his deportation to Germany pending an appeal of the original case that ordered his expulsion from the US. Demjanjuk's lawyers had argued that deportation would subject Demjanjuk to mental and physical pain that would amount to torture because of his deteriorating health and Germany's intent to place him in prison. Merk called the delays cynical and intolerable, and said she was unsure how the case would go forward. 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 Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit 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 April 04, 2009 (boomark / email).