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Lawyers to represent eight victims at Demjanjuk trial
Jul 18, 2009, 14:20 GMT
Munich - Lawyers are to represent eight Holocaust victims during the accessory-to-murder trial of alleged Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, the news magazine Der Spiegel said Saturday.
Demjanjuk, who is accused of working at Sobibor death camp and is detained at a Munich jail, has already been indicted. While lawyers have been suggesting the trial may begin in September, Der Spiegel said the target was now October.
A prosecutions spokesman said no date had been set, but that forecast was 'realistic.'
Among those who have sought legal representation at the trial are Thomas Blatt, who escaped from Sobibor in 1943 and whose parents were both killed there during Demjanjuk's alleged period as an SS auxiliary.
The eight to be represented by five of their own lawyers are mainly victims' relatives living in the Netherlands, United States and Germany, Der Spiegel said.
Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of helping herd 27,900 Jews - the number killed during his months of service - to the gas chambers. Prosecutors aim to bring 20 witnesses.
The magazine said the indictment has been drafted to counter the likely defence argument that the Ukraine-born Soviet soldier had little choice as a prisoner of war about whether to accept the work the Nazis chose for him.
A former Ohio auto worker, Demjanjuk is now stateless. He was expelled from the United States this year.
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He was already tried on charges of being at Sobibor and he was found innocent.
None of the Sobibor survivors said he was there. One survivor who was assigned to the guard barracks said he knew all the guards and that Demjanjuk was not a guard at Sobibor.
Israel also found him not guilty of being at other camps too.
This is a sham persecution by the left. His Israeli lawyer was blinded by acid and his other lawyer 'committed suicide'.
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roger a pacheraJul 20th, 2009 - 01:18:54
let this 89 year old person return to the USA, how could he alone have sent 29000 jews to their death, where are others including jew capos that took part in crimes, and what about the jews taking part in the killing of Palestinians in gaza with obama support.
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