The Justice Ministry is considering a request by an American attorney, Mark O’Connor, to represent alleged Nazi war criminal John DEMJANJUK when he stands trial in an Israeli court.
O’Connor, who came to Israel last week, submitted a formal request Friday to Meir Gabi, Director General of the Justice Ministry, and Dennis Gouldman, head of the Ministry’s International Department. Justice Minister Moshe Nissim will consult with the National Council of the Chamber of Advocates. The question is whether a foreign attorney not a member of the Israel Bar may argue a case in an Israeli court.
If O’Connor’s request is denied, an Israeli defense attorney will be appointed for DEMJANJUK. But it appeared likely Sunday that the Justice Ministry will allow O’Connor to plead. A West German attorney was permitted to defend Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961.
BASIS FOR THE DEFENSE
O’Connor told reporters Friday that his defense of Demjanjuk will be based on evidence that the Ukrainian-born former U.S. citizen who was extradited to Israel three weeks ago is not the Treblinka death camp guard the inmates called “Ivan the Terrible” because of his relentless brutality.
According to the American attorney, he has “solid evidence” to support Demjanjuk’s claim that he is a victim of mistaken identity. He said that once he is granted the right to appear for his client he will travel to Europe to secure further evidence.
TWO SETS OF TESTIMONY
As the case is shaping up, Demjanjuk’s trial will pit the recent testimony of Treblinka survivors who have positively identified Demjanjuk from photograph, against testimony taken from other survivors many years ago that the guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” was in fact killed during an inmate uprising at Treblinka in 1943.
Evidence to that effect has surfaced in Israel since Demjanjuk was brought here. The latest information that may cast doubt on Demjanjuk’s identity is the testimony given under oath by a Treblinka survivor, Elias Rosenberg, to the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Vienna in 1947.
Rosenberg appeared before Tuvia Friedman, who ran the center on behalf of Hagana and later achieved prominence as a Nazi hunter from the documents amassed at his Haifa-based archives. His testimony was witnessed by Dr. Otto Schushny and Dr. Kurt Weigel.
According to Rosenberg, the sadistic guard who operated the Treblinka gas chambers was killed by Jews in August, 1943. Friedman has a signed copy of Rosenberg’s five-page testimony, given in German.
Earlier, a 20-year-old report was found in the Bar Ilan University archives. It contains the testimony of another survivor, Abraham Goldfarb, given to a student researcher employed by the Bar Ilan Holocaust Research Center which in the 1960s compiled an oral history of Holocaust events from survivors who witnessed them.
According to Goldfarb, who died last year, “Ivan the Terrible” and another guard were killed by Jews who stormed the gas chambers in 1943 and their bodies thrown into the crematorium furnace. The Justice Ministry has refused comment because the case is sub Judice. But the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial archives dismissed the report as unreliable.
ADDITIONAL CORROBORATING EVIDENCE CITED
O’Connor believes there is additional corroborating evidence. In reply to reporters who asked why Demjanjuk was stripped of his U.S. citizenship, the lawyer said the U.S. Justice Department succeeded in proving only that Demjanjuk did not obtain his citizenship by legal means. It did not prove that he and “Ivan the Terrible” were the same person, he said.
O’Connor visited Demjanjuk at Ayalon prison near Ramla where he is being held in isolation while the police examine evidence preparatory to drafting the charges on which he will be tried.
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