Demjanjuk estate wants posthumous US citizenship

CLEVELAND (AP) — The estate of a recently deceased Ohio autoworker convicted of Nazi war crimes wants an appeals court to help restore his U.S. citizenship.

John Demjanjuk, of suburban Cleveland, died March 17 in Germany at age 91. In a filing late Monday night, his estate asked the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to take up the case.

A three-judge panel of the court rejected the citizenship bid in June, upholding a judge’s ruling last year in Cleveland.

The defense says the American government withheld potentially helpful material. “Fraud is fraud. It does not die” with the death of parties involved, the defense said in its latest filing.

The top federal prosecutor for northern Ohio rejected the defense contention. “Nothing in the Demjanjuk family’s latest filing provides any reason for the court to change its mind,” U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said in an email comment.

“It is merely the latest attempt to deflect attention from the fact that an overwhelming volume of evidence proves conclusively that John Demjanjuk served as a Nazi guard at camps where thousands of innocent people were persecuted and murdered.”