Demjanjuk trial opens

MUNICH (AP) — John Demjanjuk sat in a wheelchair wrapped in a light blue blanket, his eyes closed and his face pale as his trial opened Monday on charges he helped kill 27,900 Jews as a Nazi death camp guard.

Lawyers for the retired Ohio autoworker portrayed him as a victim — of the Nazis and misguided German justice. But three German doctors testified the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was fit to stand trial.

Wearing a blue baseball cap, Demjanjuk, 89, was wheeled in to the packed Munich state court and did not answer when presiding judge Ralph Alt asked if he could answer basic questions about himself. His left hand twitched occasionally and his mouth was open slightly as though he was in pain.

A German doctor who examined Demjanjuk two hours before the trial began said that despite suffering from a bone-marrow disease and other ailments he was able to face trial.

Demjanjuk was deported in May from the United States and has been in custody in Munich since then. He could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of training as a guard in the Trawniki SS camp, then serving in the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The prosecution argues that after Demjanjuk, a Soviet Red Army soldier, was captured by the Germans in 1942 he volunteered to serve under the SS as a guard.

Demjanjuk has denied that, saying he spent most of the rest of the war in Nazi POW camps before joining the so-called Vlasov army made up of Soviet POWs and other anti-communists to fight with the Germans against the encroaching Soviets in the final months of World War II.

The trial comes after 30 years of legal action against Demjanjuk on three continents.

Demjanjuk had his U.S. citizenship revoked in 1981 after the Justice Department alleged he hid his past as the notorious Treblinka guard “Ivan the Terrible.” He was extradited to Israel, where he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1988, only to have the conviction overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity.

This is the second major war crimes trial for Demjanjuk.

If convicted, Demjanjuk could receive credit in sentencing for some or all the time he spent behind bars in Israel. If acquitted, Demjanjuk will likely have to remain in Germany because he has been stripped of his U.S. citizenship.