Demjanjuk's defense lawyer to address Chicago community

CHICAGO - Yoram Sheftel, chief defense counsel for John Demjanjuk, will speak in Chicago on Sunday, June 30, at 1 p.m. at Ss. Volodymyr and Olga Church hall. His appearance is being sponsored by the Ukrainian American Justice Committee.

Copies of Mr. Sheftel's new book titled "Defending Ivan the Terrible: The Conspiracy to Convict John Demjanjuk," will be available for purchase. Published by Regnery Press, the book is the American version of his earlier book reviewed on the pages of The Ukrainian Weekly by Myron B. Kuropas and others.

In his preface to the American edition, Mr. Sheftel writes about his conviction that the Demjanjuk debacle was orchestrated from Moscow. The Soviets were not particularly interested in Mr. Demjanjuk per se, he writes. "The Soviet objective, as far as I was concerned, was to cause a rift between the Jewish and Ukrainian communities in North America. Because, despite the many difficult and painful memories of strained relations between Jews and Ukrainians, these two communities were beginning to cooperate in anti-Soviet activity. And it was causing considerable concern to the Soviet leaders in the Kremlin and their agents in North America, especially a certain Michael Hanusiak, the editor of The Ukrainian Daily News. The Soviets, therefore, decided to snip the Jewish/Ukrainian "conspiracy" in the bud.

Mr. Sheftel also mentions how difficult it was to have his book published in the United States, despite excellent reviews of it in England and France. This had "no effect on the American liberal-left," writes Mr. Sheftel. "On the contrary, what moved them was the need to silence the truth."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 16, 1996, No. 24, Vol. LXIV

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