Demjanjuk stripped of U.S. citizenship (03/03/02)

Demjanjuk stripped of U.S. citizenship

CLEVELAND - A federal judge once again revoked the U.S. citizenship of John Demjanjuk, whom the Office of Special Investigations of the U.S. Justice Department accuses of being a guard at several Nazi death and labor camps. The decision was handed down on February 21.

Ed Nishnic, spokesman for the Demjanjuk family, told The Weekly on February 27 that Mr. Demjanjuk will appeal the decision. He explained also that the Demjanjuk defense has 10 days from the date of the judgment to respond.

The Associated Press reported that Judge Paul Matia of the Federal District Court in Cleveland said there is enough evidence to prove Mr. Demjanjuk was a guard at Nazi death and forced labor camps without eyewitness corroboration. The ruling came a little more than eight months after a seven-day trial in the case that ended on June 8, 2001.

"The government had the burden of proving its contention to the court by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence," Judge Matia said in a supplement to the ruling. "It did so."

Mr. Nishnic responded by saying: "We tried our case and continue to believe the government is wrong. We most respectfully believe that Judge Matia has made serious factual and legal errors in his opinion."

"It is true that judges have ruled against us over the past 25 years and public opinion has seemed to be against us as well. Nevertheless, we have proven them wrong before and we have been vindicated. I am sure everybody will remember that Mr. Demjanjuk was wrongfully convicted, spent seven years in solitary confinement, and was sentenced to death by hanging due to an erroneous decision by a three-judge panel in Israel. They were wrong, and we were vindicated. We will appeal and will prove them wrong once again," Mr. Nishnic told The Weekly.

Mr. Demjanjuk, 81, whose case was initiated more than 25 years ago, has claimed that he served in the Soviet Army, was captured by German forces and was a prisoner of war.

The New York Times quoted Judge Matia as saying that, although Mr. Demjanjuk denied that he had been at any of the Nazi camps cited by the OSI, "he has not given the court any credible evidence of where he was during most of World War II."

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.

The Justice Department filed suit again on May 19, 1999, seeking for the second time to 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.

Federal prosecutors allege that Mr. Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenberg camps, 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 during the trial last year that his client is once again the victim of mistaken identity. The New York Times of February 22 reported that Mr. Tigar predicted Mr. Demjanjuk would be cleared.

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