Demjanjuk goes on trial once again; Defense attorney calls it "trial by archives" (06/10/01)

Demjanjuk goes on trial once again

Defense attorney calls it "trial by archives"

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - John Demjanjuk, the former Cleveland autoworker once thought to be "Ivan the Terrible" of the Treblinka death camp, is on trial once again in the United States as the Justice Department seeks to prove that he was a guard at several other Nazi camps.

The U.S. Justice Department complaint, filed on May 19, 1999, seeks to once again revoke Mr. Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship on the grounds that he illegally gained entry into the United States and illegally gained U.S. citizenship because he had concealed his service as a camp guard.

The trial got under way on May 29 in Cleveland before Judge Paul R. Matia of the Federal District Court.

Federal prosecutors allege that Mr. Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp and the Majdanek concentration camp, both in Poland, and at the Flossenberg concentration camp in Germany. The lawsuit also alleges that Mr. Demjanjuk was trained for that service at the Trawniki camp.

At the time the new charges were filed two years ago, Mr. Demjanjuk's attorney, Michael E. Tigar, told The New York Times: "Twenty-two years ago they sued," he said. "After 21 years of litigation it was determined not only that they had the wrong guy but that they had defrauded the courts. We hope it doesn't take that long to demonstrate once again that the Justice Department is wrong."

"This is a trial by archives," The New York Times quoted Mr. Tigar as saying at the start of the new trial. The defense attorney noted that there are no living eyewitnesses left in the government's 24-year-long investigation of Mr. Demjanjuk.

"We will show the court a scenario that explains how it is that the government once again has got it wrong," Mr. Tigar argued before the court.

That indirect reference was to the U.S. government's previous accusations that Mr. Demjanjuk was the notorious "Ivan" of Treblinka - a charge that did not hold up as Israel's Supreme Court in 1993 overturned his conviction by a lower court.

Mr. Demjanjuk, who had lost his U.S. citizenship in 1981, regained it in February 1998 thanks to a ruling by the same federal judge who is hearing the new case.

In his 1998 ruling Judge Matia cited fraud on the part of U.S. government prosecutors and wrote that attorneys of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) "acted with reckless disregard for their duty to the court and their discovery obligations" in failing to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence to the Demjanjuk defense.

Seven documents are key

Various news sources reported that the U.S. government's new case against Mr. Demjanjuk is based on seven wartime documents that show his presence at Trawniki, Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenberg. Mr. Demjanjuk continues to deny that he ever served the Nazis, but admits that he gave false statements when immigrating to the United States in order to escape repatriation to the Soviet Union, where he feared persecution.

Mr. Tigar said his client is once again the victim of mistaken identity. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported that Mr. Tigar said in his opening statement: "This odyssey is about to come to an end. ... He [Mr. Demjanjuk] has told a consistent version. At the end of the day, he asks this court to listen."

On the first day of the trial, the defense challenged the first witness, Gideon Epstein, a forensic document specialist. Mr. Tigar cross-examined him about every detail of the photo identity card that the OSI says was issued to Mr. Demjanjuk, as well as duty rosters. Mr. Epstein said under cross-examination that he could not completely determine whether it is Mr. Demjanjuk's signature on the Trawniki ID.

On May 31, a U.S. government witness, historian Charles W. Sydnor, admitted that he was wrong when he had stated in the 1980s that Mr. Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible." The Plain Dealer reported that Mr. Sydnor said: "I was wrong at the time. But I now believe the Israeli Supreme Court [which said Mr. Demjanjuk may have been a guard somewhere else] got it right, based on the massive amount of documents that have come out since then."

Another prosecution witness, Larry Stewart, a lab director for the Secret Service, testified that the Trawniki card and the photo on it are originals, and that the information on the card, such as birthdate, hometown and father's name, is the same as that of Mr. Demjanjuk. He also pointed to a reference on the card to a scar on the card holder's back, noting that federal prosecutors say Mr. Demjanjuk suffered such an injury, and said the ink on the card is similar to that used on other documents issued by the Nazis.

Mr. Tigar questioned just what the Trawniki card proves, noting that though it indicates a man named Demjanjuk may have been at the training camp, it does not prove that man was his client. On the fifth day of the trial the defense attorney said a man named Ivan Andreievych Demjanjuk, a cousin of his client, had served at Trawniki, and that the description on the Trawniki ID matches one given by a fellow guard, Vasilii Litvinenko, of this heretofore unknown Demjanjuk.

Case dates back to 1977

The Demjanjuk case dates back to 1977, when the Ohio resident was first accused of being "Ivan the Terrible." A naturalized U.S. citizen, he lost that status in 1981, when a court stripped him of his citizenship. He was ordered deported and in 1986 was extradited to Israel, where a war crimes trial began the next year. He was sentenced to death in 1988, but that conviction was overturned on appeal in 1993, and Mr. Demjanjuk returned home to Seven Hills, Ohio.

* * *

The Ukrainian Weekly did not succeed in making contact with Edward Nishnic, spokesman for the Demjanjuk family, as his father-in-law's trial is ongoing.

| Home Page |