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Accused Nazi guard deported to Germany to face accessory to murder charges

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

[JURIST] Accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk arrived in Germany Tuesday to face accessory to murder charges for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor concentration camp after being deported by the US. Demjanjuk was deported after exhausting his appeals when US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens denied an application for stay of deportation last week. Also, on Monday a German court rejected an appeal of a ruling by a Berlin court that denied a request to block his deportation. Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer said:The removal to Germany of John Demjanjuk is an historic moment in the federal government's efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. ... Mr. Demjanjuk, a confirmed former Nazi death camp guard, denied to thousands the very freedoms he enjoyed for far too long in the United States. Now, finally, Mr. Demjanjuk has been held accountable in one small way for his part in one of the most horrific chapters in history.Demjanjuk, 89, has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In 2008, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey, ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demjanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy which ordered his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost his appeal to the BIA. 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 May 12, 2009 (boomark / email).