Accused Nazi Can Be Deported From U.S.
A U.S. immigration judge in Virginia has revoked John Demjanjuk's stay of deportation to Germany, effective on Wednesday.
Monday's ruling clears the way for Demjanjuk to be sent to Germany, unless he is able to successfully appeal.
The 89-year-old suburban Cleveland man came to America after World War II.
A German arrest warrant issued in March accuses the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk of 29,000 counts of acting as an accessory to murder at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.
In Germany, Demjanjuk would have a chance to respond to the allegations before a judge. He denies involvement in any deaths.
The retired autoworker who lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills has argued that his deportation would amount to torture, given his frail health.
In a three-page signed statement submitted last week requesting asylum, Demjanjuk also questioned Germany's motive in seeking his deportation and suggested the German government was trying to make up for lax earlier pursuit of war criminals.
"It is possible that the German authorities see a prosecution of me as means to draw attention away from their past approach," the statement said.
Demjanjuk came to the United States after the war as a displaced person and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. His citizenship was revoked twice, first in 1981.
Demjanjuk was extradited in 1986 to Israel, where he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death in 1988.
In 1993, the Israeli Supreme Court determined he was not the notorious Nazi death camp guard Ivan the Terrible at Treblinka in Poland, and he was allowed to return home.
Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored in 1998 and revoked again in 2002. The U.S. Department of Justice renewed its case, saying he had indeed been a Nazi guard and could be deported for falsifying information on his U.S. immigration paperwork.