Former Nazi camp guard charged 29,000 times

[Ohio Joe]

Source: Washington Post

BERLIN -- German prosecutors said Wednesday they have charged retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk with more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his time as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp, and will seek his extradition from the U.S.

Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk) is accused of participating in the murders while he was a guard at the Nazi camp in occupied Poland between March and September 1943.

"In this capacity, he participated in the accessory to murder of at least 29,000 people of the Jewish faith," Munich prosecutors said in a statement.

The 88-year-old Demjanjuk, who lives in a Cleveland suburb, denies involvement.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100788.html

[babylonsister]

1. Holy moly. I remember this guy claiming how

innocent he was. I say we give him back to Germany and may justice be done.

[iandhr]

2. I might be behind the times but the article says

Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986, when the U.S. Justice Department believed he was the sadistic Nazi guard known as Ivan the Terrible from the Treblinka death camp.

He spent seven years in custody before the Israeli high court freed him after receiving evidence that another Ukrainian was that Nazi guard."

If the Israeli's freed him then what is this?

[rug]

4. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by hanging before they realized the mistake.

[Auggie]

5. So the DOJ says he's someone else now?

What a bizarre case. And one that's been going on for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

[tuckessee]

3. He was only following orders.

He should get off scot-free and be lauded as a hero for serving his nation in uniform.

They should punish those in Washington er, ah, Berlin.

:sarcasm:

[Dr.Phool]

6. He was a Ukranian POW working as a guard.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Hmm. So how many times should we be charging Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld / Rice / Yoo / Gonzales...?

[47of74]

8. Over a million times

Once for every man, woman, and child who died in their illegal war of aggression against Iraq on all sides.

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Sentences to be served consecutively

Or -- if we could find a reliable way of reviving someone after killing them -- we could take the old eye-for-an-eye approach...

[Thothmes]

14. In LBJ's case it would have been four million charges.

[JDPriestly]

13. My first thought also.

Bullies should be punished.

[struggle4progress]

9. Sobibor Trials

... former SS men who served in Sobibor were brought to trial in Hagen in September 1965 charged with murdering Jews in the Sobibor death camp ...

In April 1963, at a court in Kiev where Sasha Pechersky was the chief prosecution witness, ten former Ukrainian guards were found guilty and executed, one was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

A third trial was held in Kiev in June 1965, where three former death camp guards from Sobibor and Belzec were executed by firing squad ...

http://www.deathcamps.org/sobibor/sobibortrials.html

[struggle4progress]

10. The Sobibor Personnel

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_personnel.htm

[JerseygirlCT]

11. Good. nt

[olddad56]

15. so why isn't Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield charged 1,000,000 times

[Thothmes]

17. for the same reason that LBJ was charged 4,000,000 times.

[No Elephants]

16. On the one hand, great. On the other hand, he's lived to 88, free of retribution, while his victims

never had that luxury, even if they survived physically.

I felt the same way when the pedophile priests started getting arresting in their 70's and 80's.

Sometimes the wheels of justice just grind far too slowly.