He's
nearly 89 and his family claims he is seriously ill. But
John Demjanjuk, the suspected concentration camp guard, will
be sent to Germany from the United States on Sunday. His
trial is meant to be held in Munich, but his son hopes the
case won't get that far.
John Demjanjuk, Jr., has tried everything: On Wednesday afternoon he personally
brought a plea for clemency from his father, the suspected
Nazi concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk, to the
office in charge of the older man's deportation. The
88-year-old Ukrainian asked the US government for a waiver
from his extradition to Germany. "I am not a security risk," he wrote in his appeal. "I am making this request for urgent humanitarian reasons."
Demjanjuk's health is so bad that deportation to Germany for trial would be an "inhuman act," claims his American lawyer John Broadley, citing the UN Convention Against Torture.
But his appeal was given no audience, and Demjanjuk's trip to Munich is now set.
On Sunday he's due to fly from Ohio and land on Monday
in Germany.
The Bavarian state public prosecutor's office in Munich issued a warrant for
Demjanjuk's arrest about three weeks ago and smoothed
the way for the senior citizen's extradition. The warrant
accuses him of assisting in the murder of 29,000 prisoners
who died in the Sobibór concentration camp, in Poland,
where Demjanjuk is alleged to have served as a guard.
In 1988 he was convicted by an Israeli court of crimes at the Treblinka concentration
camp in what is the present-day eastern Poland. An Israeli
high court acquitted him, though, in 1993, before he
was executed.
The US government rescinded
his American citizenship years ago for the suspected
crimes at Sobibór, but the measure was finalized only
last May. Demjanjuk fought the charges from the outset:
He said he had never worked for the Germans as a guard
at a death camp.
Demjanjuk's family and lawyers
have long relied on the old man's health as a reason
to resist extradition. Medical reports seen by DER SPIEGEL
say Demjanjuk suffers from a rare early form of leukemia
which mainly afflicts older men. His doctors also attest
that he has kidney stones and a chronic kidney condition.
According to his son, because of arthritis he can no
longer stand without help, and walks only short distances.
Two weeks ago in Cleveland, Ohio, the family sent Demjanjuk to an official checkup.
His German defense team had asked to have him examined
in America by a Bavarian-approved doctor to determine
his fitness for trial. "My father would possibly have survived the flight to Germany (for a checkup)," argued John, Jr., "but then if they determined that he was too sick, then the Germans would have
him by the neck and could keep him from coming back." The stateless Demjanjuk had so far not been examined by a doctor, according
to his family.
The Office of Special Investigations is a section of the US Department of Justice
devoted to human-rights violations and, in particular,
Nazi criminals. Its steady pursuit of the measure to
revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship showed a political will
to extradite him, and now all the formalities have all
been resolved. The US has even promised to provide a
temporary identity card for Demjanjuk -- who turns 89
on Friday -- and to send a doctor as well as an immigration
officer with him on the plane to Munich.
spiegel.de
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