SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Doctors say ex-Nazi guard Demjanjuk fit for trial

Prosecutors said Friday that ex-Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk, accused of leading 29,000 Jews to their deaths, is fit to be tried in what could be Germany's last major Nazi case.

Doctors say ex-Nazi guard Demjanjuk fit for trial
Photo: DPA

The 89-year-old native of Ukraine, who was deported from the United States in May, “is fit to stand trial with the restriction that trial days do not last longer than two sessions of 90 minutes,” Margarethe Noetzel, a spokeswoman for the state prosecutor’s office said, citing a medical report.

The case will be transmitted to the court in July, Noetzel added, but it was unclear when any trial would start.

Demjanjuk, suspect number three in the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s latest report on wanted Nazi war criminals behind two others thought to be dead, is wanted for complicity in the deaths of thousands of Jews during his time at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.

It is not the first time that the barrel-chested, bespectacled Demjanjuk has found himself in such a situation. He spent five years on death row in Israel before being acquitted in 1993 when the Jewish state overturned the verdict.

In that case, Demjanjuk was suspected of being “Ivan the Terrible,” a particularly brutal death camp guard who specialised in hacking at naked prisoners with a sword, but Israel established it had the wrong man.

Demjanjuk’s lawyer says his client says he was never there.

But courts in both Israel and the United States have previously stated he was a guard at Sobibor, accusations he had never previously challenged.

Prosecutors also have an SS identity card with a photograph of a young man said to be Demjanjuk and written transcripts of witness testimony placing him at the camp.

Demjanjuk is stateless, having been stripped of his US citizenship for lying about his past. Munich prosecutors say it falls on the German city to try him because he had been registered as living there after World War II.

Question marks over the health of the octogenarian — whose family say suffers from a variety of ailments including kidney disease, arthritis and cancer — dominated the months of legal wrangling that preceded his eventual deportation to Germany from his home in Cleveland, Ohio.

Lawyers for Demjanjuk argued that the pain he would suffer on the transatlantic flight to Germany amounted to a form of torture and that he would likely not survive the flight.

However, the United State Justice Department rejected the family’s arguments and released four secretly filmed surveillance videos showing him apparently getting out of a car without difficulty.

This contrasted sharply with the scene before his deportation when he was carried by federal agents in a wheelchair, moaning and sobbing, to be put on a plane to Germany. In this instance, he received an 11th hour reprieve.

The day after his arrival at the Stadelheim prison near the southern city of Munich, medical officials there declared him fit enough to remain in custody.

Deputy prison director Jochen Menzel said then that Demjanjuk was in strikingly good condition.

“He is not typical for his age… he is in better shape than usual for an 89-year-old,” he told rolling news channel N24.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Germany charges sixth suspect in health minister kidnap plot

German prosecutors said Wednesday they had charged a sixth suspect in a far-right plot to kidnap the health minister and overthrow the government in protest against Covid-19 restrictions.

Germany charges sixth suspect in health minister kidnap plot

The 61-year-old man was charged with “the preparation of a treasonous enterprise and membership in a terrorist organisation”, Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement.

The group intended to strike several parts of the energy grid to provoke a “nationwide power outage lasting several weeks” that would provide cover for a coup attempt, investigators said.

The alleged plotters planned to abduct Health Minister Karl Lauterbach “at gunpoint”, potentially killing his bodyguards in the process.

During the coronavirus pandemic, some of the fiercest opponents of the government’s anti-virus measures were far-right activists who reject Germany’s democratic institutions.

Lauterbach had become a hate figure for the group because of the pandemic restrictions including the requirement to wear facemasks in public places that he had ordered.

“The kidnapping of a high-ranking federal government official was intended to demonstrate the group’s determination and capabilities,” prosecutors said.

The latest suspect was said to have “participated in meetings of the group and worked on the concretisation of the plans”.

The man allegedly declared himself ready to participate in the kidnapping of Lauterbach, prosecutors said.

He also offered his garage in the region south of Frankfurt to a group ringleaders as a weapons store, investigators said.

The senior plotter was arrested in April 2022 and the arms – two AK-47 assault rifles and four Glock pistols – were never deposited.

READ ALSO:

The new suspect also offered to “sail” to Russia after the planned coup “as a member of a delegation to negotiate an ‘alliance’ with Russian state authorities and to procure military equipment”, prosecutors said.

Five other members of the group went on trial in Koblenz in May 2023.

The group intended to replace the government with an authoritarian system “modelled on the constitution of the German Empire of 1871”, according to investigators.

The belief that the German government is illegitimate is current among members of the far-right Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, which has attracted a growing number of followers.

The organisers of another alleged far-right plot to topple the government were arrested in raids at the end of 2022.

The trial of the suspected ringleader, the aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, will open in Frankfurt in May.

SHOW COMMENTS