MUNICH,
Germany (Reuters) - Accused Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk
responded to charges in a German courtroom for the first
time Tuesday, attacking the justice system and referring
to himself as a "prisoner of war."
In a statement read to the Munich court by defense attorney Ulrich Busch, the
90-year-old Demjanjuk rejected charges he helped kill 27,900
Jews during the Holocaust.
"(I) was forcibly deported
to Germany where an essentially false charge of accessory
to murder was made," he said in the statement, read while he lay motionless in a mobile bed wearing
dark sunglasses.
German state prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk,
who was top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted
war criminals, of assisting in killings at the Sobibor death
camp in Poland, where they say at least 250,000 Jews were
killed.
The retired auto worker was born in
Ukraine and fought in the Red Army before being captured
by the Nazis and recruited as a camp guard during World War
Two. He emigrated to the United States in 1951 and became
a naturalized citizen in 1958.
In his comments Tuesday, Demjanjuk attacked Germany for both its role in the
war and for bringing him to trial.
"It is not right that one wants to make a war criminal out of a prisoner of war," his statement said. "Germany is guilty of a war of extermination in which I lost my home."
Demjanjuk denies having worked at
Sobibor, and his family says he is too frail for a trial
which he began in a wheelchair and now attends lying down
after complaining of pain.
"I am thankful to the care
personnel -- they help reduce the great pain brought by this
trial, which I consider torture," he said in the statement.
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