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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.

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CRIME

Nine face trial in Germany for alleged far-right coup plot

The first members of a far-right group that allegedly plotted to attack the German parliament and overthrow the government will go on trial in Stuttgart on Monday.

Nine face trial in Germany for alleged far-right coup plot

Nine suspected participants in the coup plot will take the stand in the first set of proceedings to open in the sprawling court case, split among three courts in three cities.

The suspects are accused of having participated in the “military arm” of the organisation led by the minor aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss.

The alleged plot is the most high-profile recent case of far-right violence, which officials say has grown to become the biggest extremist threat in Germany.

The organisation led by Reuss was an eclectic mix of characters and included, among others, a former special forces soldier, a former far-right MP, an astrologer, and a well-known chef.

Reuss, along with other suspected senior members of the group, will face trial in the second of the three cases, in Frankfurt in late May.

The group aimed to install him as head of state after its planned takeover.

Heinrich XIII arrested at his home following a raid in 2022.

Heinrich XIII arrested at his home following a raid in 2022. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Boris Roessler

The alleged plotters espoused a mix of “conspiracy myths” drawn from the global QAnon movement and the German Reichsbûrger (Citizens of the Reich) scene, according to prosecutors.

The Reichsbürger movement includes right-wing extremists and gun enthusiasts who reject the legitimacy of the modern German republic.

Its followers generally believe in the continued existence of the pre-World War I German Reich, or empire, under a monarchy, and several groups have declared their own states.

Such Reichsbürger groups were driven by “hatred of our democracy”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in Berlin on Sunday.

“We will continue our tough approach until we have fully exposed and dismantled militant ‘Reichsbürger’ structures,” she added.

READ ALSO: Who was involved in the alleged plot to overthrow German democracy?

‘Treasonous undertaking’

According to investigators, Reuss’s group shared a belief that Germany was run by members of a “deep state” and that the country could be liberated with the help of a secret international alliance.

The nine men to stand trial in Stuttgart are accused by prosecutors of preparing a “treasonous undertaking” as part of the Reichsbürger plot.

As part of the group, they are alleged to have aimed to “forcibly eliminate the existing state order” and replace it with their own institutions.

The members of the military arm were tasked with establishing, supplying and recruiting new members for “territorial defence companies”, according to prosecutors.

Among the accused are a special forces soldier, identified only as Andreas M. in line with privacy laws, who is said to have used his access to scout out army barracks.

Others were allegedly responsible for the group’s IT systems or were tasked with liaising with the fictitious underground “alliance”, which they thought would rally to the plotters’ aid when the coup was launched.

The nine include Alexander Q., who is accused by federal prosecutors of acting as the group’s propagandist, spreading conspiracy theories via the Telegram messaging app.

Two of the defendants, Markus L. and Ralf S., are accused of weapons offences in addition to the charge of treason.

Markus L. is also accused of attempted murder for allegedly turning an assault rifle on police and injuring two officers during a raid at his address in March 2023.

Police swooped in to arrest most of the group in raids across Germany in December 2022 and the charges were brought at the end of last year.

Three-part trial 

Proceedings in Stuttgart are set to continue until early 2025.

In all, 26 people are accused in the huge case against the extremist network, with trials also set to open in Munich and Frankfurt.

Reuss will stand trial in Frankfurt from May 21st, alongside another ringleader, an ex-army officer identified as Ruediger v.P., and a former MP for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann.

The Reichsbürger group had allegedly organised a “council” to take charge after their planned putsch, with officials warning preparations were at an advanced stage.

The alleged plotters had resources amounting to 500,000 euros ($536,000) and a “massive arsenal of weapons”, according to federal prosecutors.

Long dismissed as malcontents and oddballs, believers in Reichsbuerger-type conspiracies have become increasingly radicalised in recent years and are seen as a growing security threat.

Earlier this month, police charged a new suspect in relation to another coup plot.

The plotters, frustrated with pandemic-era restrictions, planned to kidnap the German health minister, according to investigators.

Five other suspected co-conspirators in that plot went on trial in Koblenz last May.

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