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Ludwigsburg, Germany - Germany's top Holocaust crimes prosecutor said Tuesday
he would apply within two months for the extradition of
John Demjanjuk, 88, the Ukrainian-born man alleged to have
been a brutal guard at the Nazis' Treblinka death camp.
Demjanjuk, who was acquitted by an Israeli court in 1993,
has recently had his US citizenship revoked, but no country
has offered to take him. But prosecutor Kurt Schrimm said
he was confident he could gain Demjanjuk's conviction in
a German court.
Schrimm heads Germany's special office for prosecuting Holocaust crimes. The
office at Ludwigshafen, which has extensive files, is
in a race against time to catch the last criminals before
they die.
Fifteen years ago, Israel's
supreme court ruled there was a reasonable doubt whether
Demjanjuk had been a sadistic guard nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible," and quashed his 1988 death sentence.
In an interview, Schrimm told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, "Our view is that a conviction can be attained under German criminal law."
The German Nazi hunter said
his office would apply within two months to the German
high court for Demjanjuk to be extradited. The high court
would first have to decide if German prosecutors had
authority over the case.
Although Demjanjuk has escaped
hanging, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre lists him at number
two on its wanted list of 10 top Nazi war criminals.
Demjanjuk asserts he served with a Nazi unit in Ukraine
but not at the extermination camp.
German courts are normally
only responsible for crimes committed by Germans or inside
Germany, but according to Schrimm, German connections
were enough. "A significant number of victims came from Germany and Demjanjuk performed functions
for Germany," he said.
Demjanjuk could be described
as official of Nazi Germany, said the prosecutor, adding
that he felt "a certain satisfaction" at the prospect of leading such a trial before all the suspects and witnesses
had passed away.
Demjanjuk emigrated to the
United States in 1951. earthtimes.org
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