John Demjanjuk was wheeled into a packed Munich court yesterday to face charges he helped kill 27,900 Jews during the Holocaust in what is likely to be Germany's last major Nazi-era war crimes trial.

Lying on a mobile hospital bed, the expressionless 89-year-old former US carworker complained of pain to medics in the afternoon session and was given an injection, causing a 30-minute delay in the proceedings.

German state prosecutors accuse Mr Demjanjuk, who was top of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most-wanted war criminals, of assisting in killings at the Sobibor death camp in Poland, where prosecutors say at least 250,000 Jews were killed.

Mr Demjanjuk denies he was involved in the Holocaust and his family insists he is too frail to stand trial. But camp victims want justice.

"Justice takes a long time. I am not seeking revenge for Demjanjuk. He should tell the truth," said co-plaintiff Thomas Blatt, whose family was killed at the camp in 1943 and who at 15 was ordered to sort out belongings of Jews sent to be gassed.

"Today is important because it is the last big international case that everyone is interested in."

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Israel Office, said: "This is a good day for Germany, for justice and for people who lost loved ones."

Mr Demjanjuk, brought into the court in a wheelchair in the morning, wore a blue cap and was motionless at the start of proceedings, his mouth occasionally dropping open.

Wrapped in a blanket, he was pale and his eyes were closed most of the time. He showed no expression and it was impossible to tell if he was aware of what was being said. For the afternoon session, Mr Demjanjuk lay on a hospital bed.

Mr Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine and fought in the Red Army before being captured by the Nazis and recruited as a camp guard. He emigrated to the US in 1951, becoming a naturalised citizen in 1958, and worked in the auto industry.

In May, he was extradited from the US where he had lived in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.

The prosecution is to read the charges today and Mr Demjanjuk, who could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars, will have the chance to respond.

Prosecutors plan to show the court documents they say prove he was at Sobibor and they will call about 20 witnesses.

Although he has acknowledged being at other camps, Mr Demjanjuk has denied he was in Sobibor, which prosecutors say was run by 20-30 Nazi SS members and up to 150 former Soviet war prisoners.

In the Sobibor gas chambers, Jews died in 20 to 30 minutes after inhaling a toxic mix of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, say prosecutors, who argue Mr Demjanjuk was at the camp for about six months in 1943.

His lawyers argue that Mr Demjanuk was a Soviet prisoner of war whose life was in danger when he was recruited by the SS and point out many more senior Nazi camp officials were let off.

Defence lawyer Ulrich Busch put forward a motion that the court was prejudiced as people senior to Mr Demjanjuk had previously been acquitted or not brought to trial.

To save his own life, a Trawniki (a prisoner recruited by the SS for camps) had to cooperate, Mr Busch said. Some two thirds of Soviet prisoners of war died while in German captivity, mainly of starvation or disease.

"For this Trawniki (Demjanjuk) - nobody even knew what he did - to be deported or imported 7,000 kilometres while others are left untouched, what is the reason for this?" said Busch, who accused the court of "moral and legal double standards".

timesofmalta.com