New investigation of Demjanjuk in Germany

[July 18, 2011]  BERLIN (AP) -- Bavarian prosecutors say they have opened a new investigation of John Demjanjuk after a German attorney filed a complaint accusing him of additional war crimes.

The 91-year-old retired Ohio autoworker was convicted May 12 of 28,060 counts of accessory to murder after a Munich court found he guarded the Nazis' Sobibor death camp.

The precedent-setting case was the first time someone was convicted on evidence of being a guard alone, without evidence of a specific killing.

Weiden prosecutor Gerd Schaeffer says the new complaint accuses Demjanjuk of also guarding the Flossenbuerg concentration camp. He says he doesn't know how long his investigation will take.

Attorney Cornelius Nestler says his goal in filing the new complaint is to expand the precedent to apply to concentration camp guards as well as death camp guards.

[Associated Press]

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