CLEVELAND — A U.S. immigration judge in Virginia today revoked John Demjanjuk’s stay of deportation to Germany, clearing the way for the retired autoworker to be sent to Germany to face charges of being a Nazi death camp guard.
The ruling takes effect Wednesday, unless Demjanjuk is able to successfully appeal. There was no immediate indication if he would try.
The 89-year-old suburban Cleveland man, who came to America after World War II, is accused in a German arrest warrant of 29,000 counts of acting as an accessory to murder at a death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He has denied involvement in any deaths.
Authorities in Germany had initially expected him to arrive in that country today. But Demjanjuk won a reprieve Friday after arguing that his case should be reopened and that being forced to go to Germany would amount to torture because of his poor health.
Judge Wayne R. Iskra, who granted the initial stay, reversed the decision today without a hearing. He agreed with the U.S. Justice Department’s response that the matter should be handled by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which has previously upheld Demjanjuk’s removal.
The German Justice Ministry said it was following the U.S. court action closely.
“We have, though, no influence on the process there. It’s something within the American justice system,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Ulrich Staudigl.
In Germany, Demjanjuk would have a chance to respond to the allegations before a judge in Munich. German prosecutors are making their case based largely on evidence used in the United States to strip Demjanjuk of his citizenship in 2002.
In 2005, an immigration judge ordered he can be deported to Germany, Poland or his native Ukraine.
In a three-page signed statement last week, Demjanjuk asked for asylum in the U.S. and said deporting him “will expose me to severe physical and mental pain that clearly amount to torture under any reasonable definition of the term.”
In the statement, Demjanjuk said he is physically weak and has severe spinal, hip and leg pain. He said he suffers from a bone marrow disorder, kidney disease, anemia, kidney stones, arthritis, gout and spinal deterioration.
His attorney in Washington, D.C., John Broadley, said a government physician examined Demjanjuk on Thursday to determine his ability to travel and there was “dramatic evidence” of his back pain. Broadley submitted a portion of the exam videotape to the government on Friday as part of his argument against deportation.
But the Justice Department’s response, signed by Eli Rosembaum, director of the Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations, argued that Demjanjuk’s “medical capacity to stand trial abroad is, or course, irrelevant in a removal proceeding.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
