Demjanjuk fit to stand trial
July 3, 2009
Medical experts have merely stipulated a limit of two 90-minute court periods per day for Demjanjuk, the Munich state prosecutor's office said in a statement on Friday. His family had argued that he was too frail to stand trial, saying he suffers from spinal problems, kidney failure and anaemia.
Demjanjuk is accused of being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases at the Sobibor camp. The retired auto worker denies having played a role in the Holocaust, but German prosecutors have an SS identity card with a photograph of a young man said to be Demjanjuk as well as written transcripts of witness testimony that place him at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.
He was deported to Germany after losing a court battle to stay in Ohio, where he held US citizenship, and has been held in a jail near Munich since May 12. Demjanjuk has been stripped of his US citizenship for lying about his past; he is now stateless.
His case is to be transferred to the court this month, Margarethe Noetzel, a spokeswoman for the state prosecutor's office said. It was not immediately clear when the trial would start. It could be Germany's last major Nazi court case.
db/dpa/AFP/ AP
Editor: Chuck Penfold