|
US to deport alleged Nazi guard
BBC News, December 2005
http://news.bc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4565806.stm
An 85-year-old man accused of having been
a guard at a Nazi death camp is to be deported from
the US to his native Ukraine, an immigration judge
has said.
John Demjanjuk lost his US citizenship in 2002 after
a judge said there was proof he had worked at Nazi
camps.
He has denied the allegations and his lawyers argued
he would be tortured if sent back to Ukraine.
Mr Demjanjuk migrated to the US in 1951 and was briefly
deported to Israel amid a 30-year legal battle over
his past.
At the time, he was suspected of having been a notorious
concentration camp guard, known by the nickname "Ivan
the Terrible".
But his name was eventually cleared in an Israeli
court and he was spared the death penalty.
He returned to the US and his citizenship - which he
had lost for allegedly lying to US immigration officials
- was restored.
However, in 2002, an immigration judge ruled that
there was enough evidence to prove Mr Demjanjuk had
been a guard at several Nazi death camps and again
stripped him of his citizenship.
He lost an appeal against the decision in 2004.
'Shark tank'
Mr Demjanjuk now has 30 days to appeal against the
latest order for his deportation.
US immigration judge Michael Creppy said there was
no evidence to prove his claim that he would tortured
if returned to the Ukraine.
Mr Demjanjuk's lawyer had argued that deporting him
to Ukraine would be like throwing him "into a
shark tank".
Mr Demjanjuk has always insisted he was a prisoner
of war with the Nazis, rather than a guard serving
under them.
But his 2002 trial found that he had been an armed
guard at the Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenburg concentration
camps where tens of thousands of Jews were executed
in gas chambers.
|