Judge expects Demjanjuk verdict in March

[January 19, 2011]  MUNICH (AP) -- A verdict is expected by the end of March in the trial of accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk, the presiding judge said Wednesday, as the 90-year-old retired autoworker's family accused the court of having already decided he is guilty.

Demjanjuk went on trial in Germany in November 2009 on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly having been a guard at the Nazi's Sobibor death camp. He denies the charges, saying that he never served in any camp and has been mistaken for someone else.

A verdict in the case could bring an end to a decades-long saga, which started in 1981 when the U.S. revoked his American citizenship, alleging he was the notorious Treblinka death camp guard "Ivan the Terrible" and had hidden the information when he immigrated to the United States.

He was extradited to Israel, where he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1988, but the conviction was overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity. He was later deported from the U.S. in May 2009 to face trial in Germany on charges that he was a guard at Sobibor.

Judge Ralph Alt told the court that he had scheduled closing arguments for the prosecution in the last week of February, defense closings would come in mid-March, and that the verdict could come by the week of March 21.

At the same time, he rejected more motions from the defense for additional witnesses and files, including documents on Demjanjuk the defense says are being held in Russia and could prove that a Sobibor identity card attributed to Demjanjuk actually was that of another guard.

Alt first rejected the request on Tuesday, and reiterated on Wednesday that the panel hearing the case believed it was simply a defense "hypothesis" that there could be details on the identity card in the files, but that there was no evidence it was there.

Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said the court's rejection of the files shows that they have already made up their minds to find his father guilty.

"Nothing can be stronger evidence of their bias against my father and against seeking the truth," he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The prosecution argues that after the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, a Soviet Red Army soldier, was captured by the Germans in 1942, he agreed to serve under the SS as a guard.

Demjanjuk claims he spent most of the rest of the war in Nazi camps for prisoners of war before joining the so-called Vlasov Army of anti-communist Soviet POWs and others. That army was formed to fight with the Germans against the encroaching Soviets in the final months of the war.

Demjanjuk suffers from numerous health problems and Wednesday's session was canceled -- aside from the details read out by Alt -- after the prison hospital where he is being held said he had been taken to a clinic for medical tests after complaining of stomach pains.

[Associated Press; By ANDREA M. JARACH and DAVID RISING]

Rising reported from Berlin.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.