Demjanjuk sues U.S. for $5 M in damages (03/19/00)

Demjanjuk sues U.S. for $5 M in damages

by Roma Hadzewycz

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - John Demjanjuk - who once faced the death sentence on charges of being the notorious Nazi death camp guard known as "Ivan the Terrible" but was cleared by the Supreme Court of Israel - filed a lawsuit on March 3, claiming the U.S. government's investigation of him dating back to 1977 amounts to torture.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks at least $5 million in damages from the U.S. government and asks that a new case filed against Mr. Demjanjuk last year by the Justice Department and its Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations be dismissed.

Contacted by The Ukrainian Weekly for a comment on this latest twist in the case, Edward Nishnic, spokesman for the Demjanjuk family, would say only: "At this time we cannot comment, according to our lawyer."

Mr. Demjanjuk's suit was filed as a response and a counterclaim to the U.S. Justice Department complaint filed on May 19, 1999, which seeks to once again revoke Mr. Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship on the grounds that he illegally gained entry into the United States and illegally gained U.S. citizenship because he concealed his service as a Nazi camp guard.

The Justice Department complaint alleges that, after being trained at the Nazis' Trawniki Training Camp, Mr. Demjanjuk served as a guard in Lublin, the Landed Estate Okzow, the Majdanek and Flossenberg concentration camps, and the Sobibor death camp.

The U.S. government suit also seeks "a judgment forever restraining and enjoining defendant [Mr. Demjanjuk] from claiming any rights, privileges, benefits or advantages under any document evidencing United States citizenship."

The Demjanjuk defense, which is being handled by the Tigar Law Firm of Washington, did not answer the complaint, but on July 30, 1999, filed a motion to dismiss the case on such grounds as prejudice to Mr. Demjanjuk and issues of double jeopardy. This year, on February 17, Judge Paul R. Matia of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, denied the Demjanjuk defense's motion to dismiss.

In new legal documents filed on March 3 - an answer and counterclaim to the U.S. government's 1999 complaint - Mr. Demjanjuk's attorney, Jane Blanksteen Tigar, denied all the charges against her client. She said he was forced to work as a laborer after being taken prisoner by the Nazis in May 1942.

The attorney argued in her March 3 filing that "the [U.S. government's] complaint is filed for vindictive purposes, in order to retaliate unlawfully against Mr. Demjanjuk for having exposed the fraudulent conduct of plaintiff [the U.S. government]."

Furthermore, the suit states: "From in or about 1977 until the present date, the United States of America, through its agents, committed and continues to commit torture upon the person of John Demjanjuk by harassing him and his family, by falsely claiming that he was a mass murderer named Ivan the Terrible, by causing him to stand trial in a circus atmosphere for these false allegations, by causing him to be confined in a solitary confinement cell under inhumane conditions, by causing him to be falsely sentenced to death and to live in a solitary confinement cell awaiting hanging by the neck until dead, by depriving him of the comfort and companionship of his family, by mocking his alleged failure to 'confess' to this crime he did not commit, by pauperizing him so that he could not fulfill his natural obligations of support to his family, by continuing to take steps designed to lead to his death at the hands of a foreign government, and by other similar devices."

The document specifically cites Allan Ryan, Norman Moskowitz, Neal Sher and Eli Rosenbaum of the OSI as U.S. agents performing this torture "in connivance with officials of the State of Israel and of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

Citizenship regained in 1998

Mr. Demjanjuk had lost his U.S. citizenship in 1981 then regained it in 1998 after a February 20 ruling by the same federal judge who in 1993 had reversed Mr. Demjanjuk's 1981 denaturalization. Judge Matia cited fraud on the part of U.S. government prosecutors and wrote that attorneys of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) "acted with reckless disregard for their duty to the court and their discovery obligations" in failing to disclose evidence to the Demjanjuk defense.

In vacating the denaturalization order of 1981, Judge Matia also considered whether any sanctions should be applied. There were two possibilities: dismissing the case with prejudice, or dismissing it without prejudice. Judge Matia chose to dismiss the case without prejudice, which left the door open for the U.S. government to reopen a case seeking to revoke Mr. Demjanjuk's citizenship. If the judge had dismissed the case with prejudice, the government would have been prevented from reopening any denaturalization proceeding against Mr. Demjanjuk.

Previous rulings in case

In 1988 the retired Cleveland autoworker had been sentenced to die in Israel after being convicted of being a guard at the Treblinka death camp. Five years later Mr. Demjanjuk's conviction was overturned by Israel's Supreme Court after it heard evidence indicating that he was a victim of mistaken identity.

In September 1993 Mr. Demjanjuk returned to the United States after a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he should be allowed re-entry while the U.S. courts considered whether he was wrongly denaturalized and then deported.

In November of that year the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals characterized the behavior of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations in handling Mr. Demjanjuk's denaturalization and deportation proceedings as constituting a "fraud on the court." In addition to its finding of fraud, the court ruled that the 1986 extradition order against Mr. Demjanjuk be overturned.

In October 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Justice Department's appeal of that 1993 ruling. At that time, Mr. Demjanjuk's family praised the Supreme Court's decision not to review the case, saying that this should allow Mr. Demjanjuk to remain in the U.S.

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