The defense counsel for John Demjanjuk rested his case Tuesday before the High Court of Justice by urging it “to completely and absolutely acquit” the accused war criminal who is appealing his 1988 conviction and death sentence.
Israeli attorney Yoram Sheftel argued that evidence recently acquired from the files of the former Soviet Union prove that the 72-year-old Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is not the sadistic guard known as “Ivan the Terrible,” who tortured Jews and operated the gas chambers at Treblinka.
But the chief prosector, Michael Shaked, cited Soviet documents identifying Demjanjuk as having served as well at the Sobibor camp in Poland and the Flossenburg camp in Germany.
One such document depicts Ivan Demjanjuk as No. 30 on a list, dated March 26, 1943, of Soviet POWs recruited to serve at Sobibor.
A second document, dated Oct. 1, 1943, lists Demjanjuk as No. 53 on the roster of guards at Flossenburg. In both documents he has the same identity number — 1323 — and the same birth date, April 3, 1920.
But Sheftel urged the court to ignore that evidence because Demjanjuk was extradited, indicted and tried for alleged war crimes only at Treblinka, a place he insists he never was. Sheftel charged that the prosecution introduced it only to “save face.”
The defense lawyer drew a sharp reprimand from the five-judge bench when he claimed Tuesday that his client was convicted and sentenced to hang only because the special court that tried him here four years ago was flawed.
“Lawyer Sheftel should not appoint himself judge of the Israeli judicial system,” said Justice Meir Shamgar, president of the High Court of Justice.
“Be more modest,” he cautioned.
Demjanjuk’s defense from the outset has been based on the notion of mistaken identity. Sheftel claimed that his new evidence, including statements taken nearly 40 years ago from former concentration camp guards subsequently executed in the Soviet Union, proved that the dreaded “Ivan” was a guard named Ivan Marchenko.
Marchenko, who may now be deceased, bore a superficial resemblance to Demjanjuk but was 10 years older and the married father of three at a time when Demjanjuk was single.
According to Sheftel, the Soviet government and the U.S. government, which extradited Demjanjuk to Israel in 1986, long had this information but concealed it.
The bald-and-burly Demjanjuk, who has been in an Israeli prison for the past eight years, appeared fit and cheerful when he was brought to court Tuesday. He had been despondent Monday when he arrived in a wheelchair because of a claimed back injury.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
