Munich, Germany – John Demjanjuk’s lawyer has made a new attempt to halt the 89-year-old’s trial in Germany on charges he was an accessory to the murder of thousands of Jews at a Nazi death camp.
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The retired Ohio auto worker was deported from the Cleveland area in May.
A defense lawyer argued again today that German law can’t be applied to the case of the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk. He also called for the trial to be suspended so he can get documents from earlier proceedings against his client in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere.
The court already has dismissed similar motions.
Also today a historian told a Munich court that the Sobibor camp set up by the Nazis in German-occupied Poland during World War II had the sole purpose to kill people there.
Sobibor was part of “Operation Reinhard,” a plan to kill Jews by gassing them, said Dieter Pohl, a historian at Munich University. The idea to kill instead of deporting Jews was suggested starting in 1941 by the Nazis working in the administration of occupied Poland.
“The sole purpose of the camp was to murder people,” said Pohl, who testified as an expert witness. “The plan was to exterminate all Jews in the territory by the end of 1942.”
The defense team has portrayed Demjanjuk as a victim of the Nazis. But German prosecutors say he was a guard and an accessory to the murders of 27,900 people.
Lock away this old nazi already and throw away the key!