Germany's highest court clears way for Demjanjuk war crimes trial

Oct 21, 2009, 9:46 GMT

Berlin - Germany's highest court cleared the way on Wednesday for alleged war criminal John Demjanjuk to face trial in Munich next month.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlruhe rejected an injunction to halt proceedings and free former Ohio resident Demjanuk, 89.

   Demjanjuk is accused of being an accessory to the murder of tens of thousands of Jews at a Nazi death camp.

   Lawyer Ulrich Busch had complained to the Constitutional Court that Germany had no legal authority to try Demjanjuk and that his client had already spent more than seven years in prison in Israel on related charges.

   Busch had added that given his age, it was unlikely Demjanjuk would survive the trial, which is due to begin November 30 and is likely to be Germany's last major war-crimes trial from the Nazi era.

The judges rejected the complaints on the grounds that it was not up to the Constitutional Court to overturn a procedural decision by the Munich court to open the trial.

   Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was deported from the United States in May to stand trial in Munich on charges of accessory to the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Prosecutors allege he served as a guard at the camp.

   In Israel he was charged with serving as a death camp guard at Treblinka, but appeal judges later concluded that his identification as a brutal guard nicknamed Ivan the Terrible was probably mistaken.

   The Munich court has set down 35 hearing days up to May 6 next year.

Demjanjuk, who is stateless, is being kept at Stadelheim prison in Munich. Germany says it has jurisdiction in the case because some of the Jews killed at Sobibor were German citizens.