PDA

View Full Version : 'Nazi guard' Demjanjuk is charged with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder




disorderlyvision
07-14-2009, 12:08 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8147437.stm


Prosecutors in Germany have formally charged alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder in World War II.

The prosecutors' office in Munich said the charges had been filed on Monday.

There was no immediate word on when the trial of the 89-year-old retired car worker, who was deported from the United States in May, might begin.

Mr Demjanjuk has denied accusations that he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp and helped murder Jews.

He says he was captured by Germans in his native Ukraine while fighting for the Red Army and kept as a prisoner of war.

Deportation

The formal filing of charges on Monday came 10 days after medical experts at Munich's Stadelheim prison declared that Mr Demjanjuk was fit to stand trial, provided that his questioning in court was limited to two 90-minute sessions per day.

Mr Demjanjuk's family have said he is too frail to stand trial because he suffers from kidney disease, cancer and arthritis. In May, he was admitted to hospital for three days after developing gout.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Berlin says it is unclear when the trial will begin, but it could be as early as this autumn.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which considers Mr Demjanjuk the world's most-wanted suspected Nazi war criminal, welcomed the move by German prosecutors.

"This is obviously an important step forward," he told the Associated Press. "We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment."

"The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator."

Mr Demjanjuk arrived in the US in 1952 as a refugee, settling in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in the car industry.

In 1988 he was sentenced to death in Israel for crimes against humanity after Holocaust survivors identified him as the notorious "Ivan the Terrible", a guard at the Treblinka death camp.

But Israel's highest court later overturned his sentence, after documents from the former Soviet Union indicated that "Ivan the Terrible" had probably been a different man.

Mr Demjanjuk returned to the US, but in 2002 had his US citizenship stripped because of his failure to disclose his work at Nazi camps when he first arrived as a refugee.

In 2005, a US immigration judge ruled that he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.

And in March 2009, prosecutors in Munich issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of being an accessory in the deaths of Jews.

They said they had documents proving his Nazi background, including an SS identity card which showed he had been a guard at Sobibor between March and September 1943, and many witness testimonies.

Warrior_of_Freedom
07-14-2009, 12:18 PM
disgusting

Agent CSL
07-14-2009, 12:31 PM
Under normal circumstances, I think all of us here would like to see a guard, soldier, or police officer punished for the crimes they committed against humanity. However, in this case exists a different scenario. The guy was captured. Another case of the "stop hitting yourself" bullies.

Stary Hickory
07-14-2009, 12:38 PM
Just let the man alone. He is 89 years old. It really is time to put this behind us. I am all for obeying the law, but really why not just let this go? A man who is almost 90 years old is done anyways, punishing him now helps no one.

Anyways, if they try him according to the law I have no complaints. But I think it's just pointless now, maybe 30 years ago or 20 even, but when he is almost 90?

literatim
07-14-2009, 01:58 PM
What I want to know is under what law are they prosecuting these people under? It is either under a retroactive German law or international law, and neither such laws have any proper authority for them to do so.

StayTrue
07-14-2009, 02:02 PM
They should also charge George Soros for his assisting the Nazi's

Steve Kroft: And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.

George Soros: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made…

Steve Kroft: …My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

George Soros: Yes. Yes.

Steve Kroft: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

George Soros: Yes. That?s right. Yes.

Steve Kroft: I mean, that?s?that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

George Soros: Not-not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don?t – you don?t see the connection. But it created no-no problem at all.

Steve Kroft: No feeling of guilt?

George Soros: No.

Steve Kroft: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?

George Soros: Well, of course I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was-well, actually, in a funny way, it?s just like in markets- that if I weren’t there- of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would-would-would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the-whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the-I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.

http://conservativeculture.com/2006/10/1131/

paulim
07-14-2009, 02:13 PM
What I want to know is under what law are they prosecuting these people under? It is either under a retroactive German law or international law, and neither such laws have any proper authority for them to do so.
No law. If you are not allowed to show new evidence to defend yourself, it can't be called law. But the answer to your question is, its a retroactive german law, David Irving talked about it in one youtube. Therefore german judges who apply these laws, may be subject to their own conviction if the current regime ever loses its power.

literatim
07-14-2009, 02:16 PM
No law. If you are not allowed to show new evidence to defend yourself, it can't be called law. But the answer to your question is, its a retroactive german law, David Irving talked about it in one youtube. Therefore german judges who apply these laws, may be subject to their own conviction if the current regime ever loses its power.

Yeah, I know one can't bring any evidence into trial to defend oneself against the charges because doing so is illegal in itself.

This is a witch hunt. They suspect someone of doing something and then bring them to a court where they cannot defend themselves.