MUNICH (AP) - Doctors have determined that John Demjanjuk is
fit to stand trial on charges that he was an accessory
to murder at a Nazi death camp, prosecutors said Friday.
The doctors said the 89-year-old retired auto worker, recently deported from
the United States, can stand trial so long as his time in
court does not exceed two 90-minute sessions daily, Munich
prosecutors said.
They added that formal charges can
be expected this month.
Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard
at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during
World War II. Prosecutors allege that he was an accessory
to murder in 29,000 cases.
"We are very pleased that
this will pave the way for him to be prosecuted in Germany," said Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
"This has been a very complicated
case, but it is important that Demjanjuk, who actively participated
in the implementation of the Final Solution, finally receive
an appropriate punishment," Zuroff said by telephone from Jerusalem.
Demjanjuk has been in custody in Munich
since arriving there May 12 after losing a court battle to
stay in the United States.
Demjanjuk's health was a key issue
in that battle. His son, John Demjanjuk Jr. told The Associated
Press in an e-mail that German doctors have determined his
father has about 16 months to live, due to his incurable
leukemic bone marrow disease.
"With less than (two) years
for my father to live, a career-seeking German prosecutor
is hastily pressing forward indicative of a 100 percent politically
motivated effort to blame Ukrainians and Europeans for the
crimes of the Germans," Demjanjuk Jr. wrote.
"This has nothing to do
with bringing anyone to justice or fitness for trial. My
father will not live to fairly litigate the matter as (he)
has successfully done before," he wrote.
Photos taken in April showed Demjanjuk
(pronounced dem-YAHN'-yuk) wincing as immigration agents
removed him from his home in Seven Hills, Ohio, during an
earlier aborted attempt to deport him to Germany.
Images taken days before and released
by the U.S. government showed him entering his car unaided.
Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier
who spent World War II as a Nazi POW and never hurt anyone.
But Nazi-era documents obtained by
U.S. justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors
include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the
Sobibor death camp and say he was trained at an SS facility
for Nazi guards at Trawniki, also in Poland.
Efforts to prosecute the Ukrainian
native began in 1977 and have involved courts and government
officials from at least five countries on three continents.
Charges of accessory to murder carry
a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison in Germany.
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