The Israeli Supreme Court will hear John Demjanjuk’s appeal next December, it was announced here Monday. The court’s registrar, Judge Shmuel Tzur, said the appeals board would consist of a panel of five justices.
Appeal became mandatory when the death sentence was pronounced April 25 on the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk by a three-judge Jerusalem district court. Demjanjuk was found guilty on April 18 of war crimes and crimes against the Jewish people.
He was convicted under the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Law of 1950, which carries a mandatory death penalty.
The court determined that evidence presented during the 14-month trial proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Demjanjuk was the Treblinka death camp guard, known as “Ivan the Terrible,” who operated the gas chambers and brutalized Jewish inmates.
His lawyers will appeal both the conviction and the death penalty. If they fail, the 68-year-old retired automobile worker from Cleveland, Ohio, would become the second war criminal executed in Israel. Adolf Eichmann was hanged here in 1962.
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