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Suspected Nazi guard arrives in Germany

AFTER three decades of fighting in court, John Demjanjuk arrived at a German prison yesterday, deported from the United States to face allegations of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews and others as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp.

A judge was expected to read him the 21-page arrest warrant later in the day. If the retired Ohio auto worker is found fit to stand trial, it would be the culmination of a legal saga that began in 1977 and has involved courts and government officials from at least five countries on three continents.

Demjanjuk flew into Munich airport from Cleveland aboard a private jet that taxied directly into a hangar, where he was transferred to an ambulance.

Munich prosecutors said 89-year-old Demjanjuk, who is claimed to be in poor health, slept for most of the flight.

From the airport he rode in a police-escorted ambulance to a special medical unit at Stadelheim prison, where he was to be examined by a doctor and formally arrested.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier who spent World War II as a Nazi prisoner of war.

But documents obtained by US justice authorities suggest otherwise. They include ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor camp and details of his training at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki. Both sites were in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Demjanjuk had been tried in Israel after accusations surfaced that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland.

He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.





 

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