Accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk goes on trial

[alex revision]

Accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk goes on trial

Thu Nov 26, 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5AP1UJ20091126

Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk stands trial in Munich on Monday for helping to kill 27,900 Jews in World War Two.

Here are some facts about Demjanjuk:

LIFE DETAILS:

* Born on April 3, 1920, in Kiev, Ukraine, Demjanjuk said he was drafted into the Russian army in 1941, became a German prisoner of war a year later and served at German prison camps until 1944. He emigrated to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958.

DEMJANJUK ON TRIAL:

* He was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1981 and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988 after Holocaust survivors said he was the notorious guard "Ivan the Terrible" at Treblinka where 870,000 people died.

* The Israeli Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence in 1993 and freed him after newly-released records from the former Soviet Union showed another man, Ivan Marchenko, was probably the Treblinka guard.

* He returned to his home near Cleveland in 1993 and, in 1998, the United States restored his citizenship. But the U.S. Justice Department the following year refiled its case against him, arguing he had worked for the Nazis as a guard at three other death camps and had hidden the facts when he emigrated.

* A federal judge rescinded his citizenship in 2002 and he was ordered to be deported in 2005. He fought deportation for years in a number of courts but Germany finally issued an arrest warrant charging him with complicity in the death of 27,900 Jews and requested his deportation.

A NEW TRIAL:

* Germany's Constitutional Court turned down an appeal last month from Demjanjuk, clearing the way for a new trial to start. Demjanjuk was deported from the United States last May and has been in jail near Munich ever since.

* In July, the high court had turned down another appeal by Demjanjuk that his deportation from the United States infringed his basic rights.

* The Simon Wiesenthal Center has said Demjanjuk pushed men, women and children into gas chambers at the Sobibor death camp in what is now Poland. Demjanjuk has denied any role in the Holocaust and his family has argued he is too frail to stand trial.