Demjanjuk trial ends, judge expected to rule in several months (06/17/01)

Demjanjuk trial ends, judge expected to rule in several months

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - John Demjanjuk's latest trial came to a close in Cleveland on June 8. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Judge Paul R. Matia of the Federal District Court, who heard the case without a jury, is expected to decide within the next few months whether Mr. Demjanjuk lied about his wartime activities.

The U.S. Justice Department had sought to prove that the former Cleveland autoworker, once thought to be "Ivan the Terrible" of the Treblinka death camp, was a guard at several other Nazi camps.

The Justice Department had filed suit on May 19, 1999, seeking 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 had concealed his service as a camp guard. The trial got under way on May 29.

Federal prosecutors allege that Mr. Demjanjuk served as a guard at Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenberg, and that he had been trained at the Trawniki camp.

Mr. Demjanjuk denies that he ever served the Nazis, but admits giving false statements when entering the United States in order to escape repatriation to the Soviet Union. Attorney Michael Tigar said his client is once again the victim of mistaken identity.

Mr. Demjanjuk, 81, did not take the stand to defend himself. Instead, the defense relied on his sworn testimony given a year ago when he was interviewed by U.S. attorneys, and called his son, John Jr., 35, to testify. Asked by Mr. Tigar, "Did your dad ever tell you that he helped the Nazis?" the younger Mr. Demjanjuk replied, "Never."

The Plain Dealer reported that Federal Prosecutor Jonathan Dimmer told Judge Matia the case against the elder Mr. Demjanjuk is solid as it is based on seven wartime documents that they say refer to Demjanjuk as they list his name, birthdate, place of birth, father's name and a scar on his back.

Those documents, according to the defense, fail to prove that the John Demjanjuk of Ohio is the person referred to in the documents. Mr. Tigar cited discrepancies in information about height and dental work, and the U.S. government's failure to match his client's signature to the one on an identification card purportedly issued by the Nazis.

The Demjanjuk case dates back to 1977. when the Ohio resident was first accused of being "Ivan the Terrible." A naturalized U.S. citizen, he lost that status in 1981, when a court stripped him of his citizenship. He was ordered deported and in 1986 was extradited to Israel, where a war crimes trial began a year later.

He was sentenced to death in 1988, but that conviction was overturned on appeal in 1993 by Israel's Supreme Court, and Mr. Demjanjuk returned home to Seven Hills, Ohio. His citizenship was restored in 1998. In that 1998 ruling 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 potentially exculpatory evidence to the Demjanjuk defense.

| Home Page |