Demjanjuk, if sent to Germany, would face an uncertain fate

BERLIN - The family of alleged Nazi death-camp guard John Demjanjuk is citing his poor health as it fights a U.S. drive to deport him to Germany for a possible war-crimes trial. Should the deportation proceed, questions remain over what would happen if he is ruled unfit to face trial once he arrives.

Upon his arrival in Munich, a doctor would determine whether Demjanjuk, 89, a retired autoworker, should be held in a prison or at a secure hospital. A medical expert would examine him before formal charges were filed.

Elderly, frail Nazi suspects with health problems have stood trial in the past: in 2001, Anton Malloth, then 89, a former guard at the Theresienstadt fortress in occupied Czechoslovakia, sat through his trial in Munich in a wheelchair, connected to an IV drip. He was sentenced to life in prison for beating a Jewish inmate to death, and died a year later.

In other cases, health issues have prompted rulings that defendants were unfit to face or continue trial.

A German attorney for Demjanjuk, Ulrich Busch, suggested this week that such a ruling would leave his client, whose U.S. citizenship has been revoked, stuck in Germany.

"There is no going back to the U.S.A. And then what?" he said. "Into a nursing home until his death? All the while separated from his family? He doesn't speak the German language. Is that a solution?"

German Justice Ministry spokesman Ulrich Staudigl declined to speculate on what might happen, saying that whether Demjanjuk might be allowed to return to his suburban Cleveland home without citizenship "is a question for American officials."

Demjanjuk, a native Ukrainian who came to the United States after World War II as a refugee, was allowed to return to the United States as a noncitizen after a trial in Israel two decades ago.

He has denied being a Nazi guard, saying he was a prisoner of war of the Germans.

Demjanjuk was tried in Israel after accusations surfaced that he was the notorious Nazi guard "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction, and he returned to the United States.

In 2002, a U.S. judge revoked his citizenship a second time based on Justice Department evidence that 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.

In March, Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant contending Demjanjuk was an accessory to 29,000 deaths at Sobibor, paving the way for U.S. deportation proceedings.

Demjanjuk's family says he is too ill to travel to Germany to stand trial, likening the transatlantic journey to torture.

Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors, said yesterday that they had received Demjanjuk's blood-test details and medical files and were evaluating whether to send a German doctor to the United States. A U.S. Division of Immigration Health Services doctor who recently examined Demjanjuk said he was "medically stable" enough to travel to Germany.

On Tuesday, immigration officers removed Demjanjuk from his home in a wheelchair to start him on his journey to Germany, but he returned a few hours later after the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stayed the deportation order.

Yesterday, a U.S. immigration appeals board in Virginia denied a request to reopen his deportation case.

The Sixth Circuit stay remains in effect. The court yesterday asked the Justice Department and Demjanjuk's attorneys to provide it more information. Lawyers have a week to respond, meaning Demjanjuk for now will remain at his home.