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CRIME

‘Ivan the Terrible’ Nazi guard attempts to block extradition

A Nazi death camp guard facing charges of assisting in the murder of at least 29,000 Jews has filed an appeal to avoid extradition to Germany, arguing the move would be tantamount to torture, his US lawyer said.

Published: 3 April 2009 08:06 CEST
'Ivan the Terrible' Nazi guard attempts to block extradition
Photo: DPA

John Demjanjuk, who turns 89 on Friday, was due to be flown Sunday from the US city of Cleveland, where he lives, to Germany, which seeks to try him for the alleged murders.

Demjanjuk, one of the world’s top Nazi war crime suspects, was to be arrested upon his arrival Monday and either taken straight to prison or to a prison hospital, after Demjanjuk’s bid to convince US officials to block his extradition on the grounds of poor health failed, his lawyer Günter Maull said in Germany.

But his attorney in Washington said he filed a last-minute emergency motion for a stay of expulsion with a US immigration court Thursday, a day after filing a petition for an administrative stay with the Department of Homeland Security.

“The grounds are that in light of his deteriorated health and the German government’s apparent intention to arrest and put him in jail… the anguish and pain that he’ll suffer from arrest and incarceration and trial in Germany will amount to torture under the convention against torture,” John Broadley told AFP.

“He is a very old man,” said Broadley, who would not confirm that Demjanjuk was due to be expelled Sunday. “So far nobody has notified us about any definite plan to take any action” to extradite his client.

For its part, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said it “is working closely with the government of Germany to secure Demjanjuk’s removal from the United States,” according to spokeswoman Laura Sweeney.

“Unfortunately, the DOJ doesn’t confirm information regarding removals unless and until an individual is on the soil of the country to which he/she has been removed.”

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk – who changed his name from Ivan to John when he moved to the United States in 1952 – was ranked number two on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s 2008 “most wanted” Nazi criminal list, behind Aribert Heim, nicknamed “Doctor Death,” who according to a recent investigation died in 1992.

German prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Demjanjuk in March, accusing him of serving for six months in 1943 at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.

The US Office for Special Investigations (OSI) described Sobibor as “as close an approximation of Hell as has ever been created on this planet.”

The extradition and the attempt to block it mark the latest episode in Demjanjuk’s nearly 30-year cat-and-mouse game with justice.

He was sentenced to death in 1988 in an Israeli court, suspected of being the infamous and sadistic concentration camp guard “Ivan the Terrible.”

The sentence was overturned five years later by Israel’s Supreme Court after statements from former guards identified another man as “Ivan the Terrible.”

Demjanjuk is in poor health and suffering from a form of leukaemia, his German lawyer said.

“We now only want to die in peace,” his wife Vera told mass circulation daily Bild in a recent interview.

GERMANY AND RUSSIA

Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

Germany and the Czech Republic on Friday blamed Russia for a series of recent cyberattacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of consequences over its "malicious behaviour in cyberspace".

Published: 4 May 2024 10:29 CEST
Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

The accusations come at a time of strained relations between Moscow and the West following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the European Union’s support for Kyiv.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said a newly concluded government investigation found that a cyberattack targeting members of the Social Democratic Party had been carried out by a group known as APT28.

APT28 “is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia”, Baerbock told reporters during a visit to Australia.

“In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”

APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused of dozens of cyberattacks in countries around the world. Russia denies being behind such actions.

The hacking attack on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party was made public last year. Hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to compromise e-mail accounts, according to Berlin.

Berlin on Friday summoned the acting charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy over the incident.

The Russian embassy in Germany said its envoy “categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident… as unsubstantiated and groundless”.

Arms, aerospace targeted: Berlin 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the cyber campaign was orchestrated by Russia’s military intelligence service GRU and began in 2022. It also targeted German companies in the armaments and aerospace sectors, she said.

Such cyberattacks are “a threat to our democracy, national security and our free societies”, she told a joint news conference in Prague with her Czech counterpart Vit Rakusan.

“We are calling on Russia again to stop these activities,” Faeser added.

Czech government officials said some of its state institutions had also been the target of cyberattacks blamed on APT28, again by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft Outlook in 2023.

Czech Interior Minister Rakusan said his country’s infrastructure had recently experienced “higher dozens” of such attacks.

“The Czech Republic is a target. In the long term, it has been perceived by the Russian Federation as an enemy state,” he told reporters.

EU, NATO condemnation

The German and Czech findings triggered strong condemnation from the European Union.

“The malicious cyber campaign shows Russia’s continuous pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, by targeting democratic institutions, government entities and critical infrastructure providers across the European Union and beyond,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU would “make use of the full spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behaviour in cyberspace”, he added.

State institutions, agencies and entities in other member states including in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden had been targeted by APT28 in the past, the statement added.

The latest accusations come a day after NATO expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “hybrid actions” including disinformation, sabotage and cyber interference.

The row also comes as millions of Europeans prepare to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections in June, and concerns about foreign meddling are running high.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told AFP that “pointing a finger publicly at a specific attacker is an important tool to protect national interests”.

One of the most high-profile incidents so far blamed on Fancy Bear was a cyberattack in 2015 that paralysed the computer network of the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. It forced the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

In 2020, the EU imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the APT28 group over the incident.

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