BERLIN (JTA) — An attorney for accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk asked for a dismissal.
Ulrich Busch filed two motions in Munich district court on Tuesday on behalf of his 89-year-old client, according to reports. One claims that Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker who had lived in the Cleveland suburbs, is in failing health and is unfit to stand trial, and the other says the evidence is weak.
The trial is due to begin in October. Demjanjuk faces charges of complicity in 27,900 murders of Jews at the Sobibor death camp.
Demjanjuk was declared fit to stand trial in July, with the caveat that sessions be no more than 1 1/2 hours long, with a total of two sessions per day. But Busch said his client was unable to hold up for long stretches during a two-hour meeting this week. He suggested that Demjanjuk, whom he said has a bone marrow disease, would be
susceptible if exposed to ill people in the courtroom.
He told The Associated Press, "If [some]one has the swine flu, that would be the end of him."
Demjanjuk reportedly is sharing a hospital cell with two other prisoners.
Demjanjuk, who has said he was a Red Army soldier during the war and was held in a German POW camp, was extradited to Germany from the United States in May.
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