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Was Demjanjuk evidence faked?
AP
Photo
In this Tuesday Aug. 3, 2010 file picture, accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk arrives in a courtroom in Munich. The FBI believed the Soviets "quite likely fabricated" evidence central to the prosecution of Demjanjuk, according to newly declassified documents from the 1980s _ a revelation that could help the defense as closing arguments resume Wednesday, April 13, 2011 in the retired Ohio auto worker's Nazi war crimes trial in Germany. The FBI field office report, obtained by The Associated Press, casts doubt on the authenticity of this Nazi ID card that is the key piece of evidence in allegations that Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.
Associated Press
BERLIN
An FBI report kept secret for 25 years said the Soviet Union “quite likely fabricated” evidence central to the prosecution of John Demjanjuk — a revelation that could help the defense as closing arguments resume today in the retired Ohio auto worker’s Nazi war crimes trial in Germany.
The newly declassified FBI field office report, obtained by The Associated Press, casts doubt on the authenticity of a Nazi ID card that is the key piece of evidence in allegations that Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.
Throughout three decades of U.S. hearings, an extradition, a death sentence followed by acquittal in Israel, a deportation and now a trial in Munich, the arguments have relied heavily on the photo ID from an SS training camp that indicates Demjanjuk was sent to Sobibor.
Claims that the card and other evidence against Demjanjuk are Soviet forgeries have repeatedly been made by Demjanjuk’s defense attorneys. However, the FBI report provides the first known confirmation that American investigators had similar doubts.
“Justice is ill-served in the prosecution of an American citizen on evidence which is not only normally inadmissible in a court of law, but based on evidence and allegations quite likely fabricated by the KGB,” the FBI’s Cleveland field office said in the 1985 report, four years after the Soviets had shown U.S. investigators the card.
It was the height of the Cold War at the time, and the ID card from the Nazi’s Trawniki training camp had not been as closely examined by Western experts as it has been today. Since then it has been scrutinized and validated by courts in the U.S., Israel and Germany — though experts at the current trial left room for doubt.
A quarter-century later, Demjanjuk, now 90, is standing trial in Munich on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder, which he denies. A verdict is expected within a month.