Demjanjuk trial
January 12, 2010
The trial of John Demjanjuk has resumed in Munich with defense lawyer Ulrich Busch making a new attempt to halt the trial of 89-year-old. Busch said he wanted to examine further files and documents from the US, Israel, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
Busch also wanted the co-plaintiffs and their lawyers to be excluded from the trial. In German law, people who have been affected by a crime may be represented as co-plaintiffs. In this case, they are mainly family members of those who died at Sobibor.
Presiding judge Ralph Alt, however, said all co-plaintiffs had been approved by the court. "I don't see how I now should reverse this," Alt said.
The trial had been suspended for three weeks on December 22. On Tuesday, the court began hearing experts testifying on the Nazi death camp system. Historian Dieter Pohl of Munich University was called to describe the Nazi's systematic murder regime.
As on previous days, Demjanjuk was wheeled into the courtroom and followed the proceedings lying on a bed.
He is accused of having assisted in the murders of at least 27,900 people at the Sobibor concentration camp in occupied Poland between March and September of 1943.
Prosecutors argue that Demjanjuk became one of the most enthusiastic participants in that camp's policy of mass murder.
Demjanjuk denies having worked at Sobibor
John Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine and fought in the Soviet Red Army against Nazi Germany. After being captured by the Germans he was recruited as a camp guard.
Among the prosecution's evidence is an identity card which appears to show that Demjanjuk worked at Sobibor. He acknowledges having worked at other camps but claims he was never at the Sobibor death camp.
After the war, Demjanjuk emigrated to the United States and lived there until being extradited to Germany in May 2009. His defense lawyers had tried to avoid extradition on the grounds that Demjanjuk was too ill to stand trial.
If convicted of being an accessory to murder, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
The case is expected to be the last major Nazi-era war crimes trial in Germany.
Prosecutors say that up to 250,000 Jews died at the Sobibor camp where as many as 150 Soviet prisoners were employed as guards.
ai/dpa/AFP/AP
Editor: Michael Lawton