Federal court halts deportation of accused Nazi guard.

[panamania79 2]

CLEVELAND – The return of alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany for trial on war crimes was delayed again Tuesday by a federal court, shortly after six immigration officers removed the retired autoworker from his suburban Cleveland home in a wheelchair.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay until it could further consider Demjanjuk's motion to reopen the U.S. case that ordered him deported, in which he says painful medical ailments would make travel to Germany torturous.

The government planned to continue its legal battle in court, said Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney.

An arrest warrant in Germany claims Demjanjuk (pronounced dem-YAHN'-yuk) was an accessory to some 29,000 deaths during World War II at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Once in Germany, he could be formally charged in court.

Citing the need to act because of the possibility of Demjanjuk's imminent deportation, the court issued the stay without addressing the U.S. government's argument that the court had no jurisdiction to rule on Demjanjuk's appeal.

Former son-in-law and family spokesman Ed Nishnic said the family was relieved the stay was granted.

"We're delighted. We're prepared to make our arguments with the 6th Circuit, and it's just a shame that Mr. Demjanjuk had to go through the hell that he went through once again this morning," he said as he walked into a federal building in Cleveland where Demjanjuk was being held.

It was unclear whether Demjanjuk would be returned to his home in Seven Hills. Nishnic was allowed access to Demjanjuk while he was in custody but was told that no decision had been made on whether he would be released.

As Demjanjuk's wheelchair was loaded into a van at their home, his wife, Vera, sobbed and held her hands to her mouth. As the van moved down the street, Vera turned and waved, sobbing in the arms of a granddaughter.

Several family members, including a 10-year-old grandson, were in the home when the officers removed Demjanjuk.

Nishnic said Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, told his family, "I love you," in Ukrainian and was aware that the officers were there to take him to Germany.

Nishnic said his former father-in-law moaned in pain as he was placed in the wheelchair.

"It was horrendous. He was in such pain. I wouldn't want to see anyone go through something like that," said granddaughter Olivia Nishnic, 20.

John Demjanjuk Jr., who filed the appeal with the 6th Circuit earlier Tuesday, said the government hadn't lived up to earlier understandings of how his father would be removed.

"They told me that they would have an ambulance. They told me we would have three to five days' notice, and obviously you can't believe everything the government tells you," he told The Associated Press by phone while headed back to Cleveland from the federal appeals court in Cincinnati.

He predicted his father would not survive long enough in Germany to stand trial.

"If he is deported, if this madness and inhumane action is not stopped by the 6th Circuit, he will live out his life in a (German) hospital. He will never be put on trial," he said. "It makes absolutely no sense that the Germans, after nearly killing him in combat, would try to kill him once again."

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said it was undeterred.

"We remain confident that John Demjanjuk will be deported and finally face the bar of justice for the unspeakable crimes he committed during World War II when he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Wiesenthal Center founder.

"His work at the Sobibor death camp was to push men, women and children into the gas chamber. He had no mercy, no pity and no remorse for the families whose lives he was destroying forever," Hier said.

Deborah Dwork, a professor of Holocaust history at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said the Demjanjuk case illustrates that there is no statute of limitations on the crime of genocide.

"The issue is holding him accountable, no matter what his age," she said.

Dwork said she believes German prosecutors acted cautiously and deliberately in bringing their case because they can't afford to run a weak trial. Germany's image in the eyes of the international community would be tarnished if Demjanjuk is acquitted, she said.

Demjanjuk, a native Ukrainian, has denied being a Nazi guard and claims he was a prisoner of war of the Germans. He came to the United States after the war as a refugee.

Demjanjuk had been tried in Israel after accusations surfaced that he was the notorious Nazi guard "Ivan the Terrible" in Poland at the Treblinka death camp. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a conviction later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

A U.S. judge revoked his citizenship in 2002 based on Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced labor camps.

An immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.

___

Associated Press Writers Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland, Terry Kinney in Cincinnati, Kantele Franko and Matt Leingang in Columbus, Devlin Barrett in Washington and Roland Losch in Munich contributed to this report.

[catknit 144]

There is something really odd about this whole thing...

Now, I would never 100% trust ANY journalist, let alone a political/opinion columnist - however, give me a conspiracy theory and I'll at least give it a read:

Pat Buchanan Pat Buchanan – Tue Apr 14, 3:00 am ET

Creators Syndicate – On Good Friday, John Demjanjuk, 89 and gravely ill, was ordered deported to Germany to stand trial as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews — at Sobibor camp in Poland.

Sound familiar? It should. It is a re-enactment of the 1986 extradition of John Demjanjuk to Israel to be tried for the murder of 870,000 Jews — at Treblinka camp in Poland.

How many men in the history of this country have been so relentlessly pursued and remorselessly persecuted?

The ordeal of this American Dreyfus began 30 years ago.

In 1979, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) at Justice, goaded and guided by Yuri Andropov's KGB, was persuaded that Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible," a huge, brutal, sadistic guard at Treblinka, who bashed in babies' heads and slashed off women's breasts, as he drove hundreds of thousands of Jews into the gas chambers.

Demjanjuk's defense was simple: I was never at Treblinka.

Yet, a dozen survivors, shown a photo spread, identified him as the beast of Treblinka. In 1986, OSI had him extradited to Israel. In 1988, he was convicted and sentenced to death. The greatest Holocaust monster since Mengele was to be hanged.

His family, friends and lawyers did not give up. They scoured Europe and, in the last days of the Soviet Union, struck pay dirt. In Moscow's files on Treblinka they discovered a photo of the real "Ivan," a far bigger, more mature man than the 23-year-old Demjanjuk in 1943.

Ivan Marchenko was positively identified as Ivan the Terrible.

To its eternal credit, Israel's Supreme Court threw aside the verdict and stopped Demjanjuk from being the first man hanged in Jerusalem since Adolf Eichmann in 1961.

A humiliated OSI, through its Israeli friends, now asked the court to authorize a new trial, charging Demjanjuk with having been a guard at Sobibor — during the same time they previously charged he had been at Treblinka.

What OSI was admitting was that its case against Demjanjuk, to see him hang from the gallows as "Ivan the Terrible," had been based on flimsy or falsified evidence and worthless or perjured testimony.

Replied the court, we don't do double jeopardy here in Israel.

Demjanjuk was released. And the grin of the jailer who opened his cell testified that many in Israel never accepted the charge that this simple man was some unrivaled devil of the Holocaust.

So, after 13 years, the last four on death row reflecting on his hanging for horrors he never committed, Demjanjuk came home to Cleveland, a free man. His citizenship was restored.

Though disgraced, OSI was not ready to throw in its hand. For it had been dealt a new card by its old comrades in the KGB.

The new evidence was a signed statement by one "Danilchenko," who claimed to have been a guard at Sobibor and had worked with Demjanjuk. As this document would have blown up the Treblinka case in Jerusalem, OSI had withheld it from the defense.

Another document turned up suggesting that Demjanjuk had indeed, after training at Trawniki camp, been assigned to Sobibor.

When the defense asked to interrogate "Danilchenko," to verify he had made and signed the statement and to question him on details, they were told this was not possible. Seems Danilchenko had died after signing.

So, after the first 13 years of his ordeal took him right up to a gallows in Jerusalem, Demjanjuk has now been pursued for another 17 years by an OSI that will not rest until he has been convicted, somewhere, of genocide.

And so we come to today.

Demjanjuk is to be taken to Germany and prosecuted as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews at Sobibor — though not one living person can place him at that camp and not even the German prosecutor will say that he ever hurt anyone. One witness in Israel, who was at Sobibor and says he knew all the camp guards, says he never saw Demjanjuk there.

If Friday's ruling is upheld, John Demjanjuk, who has been charged with no crime on German soil, is to be taken to Germany, home of the Third Reich, to be tried by Germans for his alleged role in a genocide planned and perpetrated by Germans. He is to serve as the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany's sins.

But if Germans wish to prosecute participants in the Holocaust, why not round up some old big-time Nazis, instead of a Ukrainian POW.

Answer: They cannot. Because the Germans voted an amnesty for themselves in 1969. So now they must find a Slav soldier they captured — and Heinrich Himmler's SS conscripted and made a camp guard, if he ever was a camp guard — to punish in expiation for Germany's sins.

The spirit behind this un-American persecution has never been that of justice tempered by mercy. It is the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20090414/cm_uc_crpbux/op_339655

It's just weird to me that they were ready to hang the guy years ago - so sure he was Ivan the Terrible - but now it's oopsy wrong camp???

Just doesn't sit right...All that being said, if he did it - yeah, prosecute - but still fishy to me.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I remember the original trial in the late 80s.....way too many red flags . I remember people who hadn't seen the real "Ivan the Terrible" in over 50 years insisting that the elderly man from Ohio was "definitely" him. How could they be so sure? I can't even place some of the people I went to high school with.

[JODO 2]

If both gov't's are sure that he was the Nazi guard, then he should definitely be held accountable regardless of his age.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

well, they Israeli supreme court saw enough evidence to overturn the original conviction so that doesn't really appear to be the case

[catknit 144]

Well I just read up on Pat Buchanan and well....huh....can't say he's the type of guy who's column I'd usually read.