The Demjanjuk War Crime Trial Hits a Snag

Associated Press reporter Andrea Jarach reported this week that the most serious evidence incriminating John Demjanjuk, the man accused of Nazi-era war crimes in the Sobibor death camp, was probably made up by the Soviet government, including the Nazi identity card that is the only piece of hard evidence connecting Demjanjuk to Sobibor.

Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine, moved to America after WWII and became an autoworker in Cleveland. He was later stripped of his American citizenship and deported to Israel for war crimes prosecution. The Israeli supreme court released him for lack of evidence and he was returned to the United States. Later, he was again stripped of his American citizenship and deported to Germany, where he is now on trial in Munich.

Demjanjuk has always claimed he is innocent and spent much of the war in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, but German prosecutors seem determined to convict him.

Today, Demjanjuk’s defense attorney filed a request for a stay of the trial while he and the prosecutors can evaluate the new evidence, which was found in a US Department of Justice file that has recently been de-classified. The FBI generated the report and seemed to believe that the identity card and other information supplied by the Soviets were forgeries, but the FBI simply preferred to ignore it.

Defense attorneys have argued to the German judge that the FBI document could make a great difference in the outcome of the 90-year-old’s trial.

German prosecutors say the document is insignificant, that they probably examined it in 2009 while preparing their case, but don't remember it, and that in any event they believe that Demjanjuk is guilty.