German investigator skeptical of new Demjanjuk claim

February 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

MUNICH (AP) — A top German investigator said Thursday he is skeptical about a new claim by a Sobibor survivor who says he remembers John Demjanjuk as a guard at the Nazi death camp.

Thomas Walther, who led the investigation that prompted Germany to prosecute Demjanjuk, said if survivor Alexej Weizen did remember Demjanjuk, it almost certainly would have come up before in the roughly 30 years the retired U.S. autoworker has faced investigations of his past.

Weizen gave statements previously to Soviet investigators and Demjanjuk had a high-profile trial in Israel in the 1980s.

“When now there is a trial and he suddenly says, ‘I know him,’ I’m very skeptical,” Walther told The Associated Press. “Why did he not remember him when there was the trial in Israel, or when it was all over the press in the U.S.?”

Demjanjuk is being tried on accusations he was an accessory to the murders of 27,900 people while allegedly serving as a guard at Sobibor. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk rejects the charges, saying he was never a guard at any Nazi camp.

Walther spoke on the sidelines of the trial, which was canceled for a second day in a row after doctors reported that Demjanjuk, 89, was still experiencing health problems.

Walther, who has now retired from the special German prosecutors’ office responsible for investigating Nazi-era crimes, had been scheduled to testify about the decision to pursue charges against Demjanjuk.

Weizen’s claim to recognize Demjanjuk came in an interview broadcast Wednesday with Czech public radio from the Russian city of Ryazan. The 87-year-old, who was a Jewish Soviet soldier held at Sobibor from 1942-43, said he recognized Demjanjuk from an old picture published in a Russian newspaper.