John Demjanjuk appealed to the Supreme Court Thursday against his war crimes conviction and death sentence by a Jerusalem district court in April.
The Ukrainian-born, former naturalized American was found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against a persecuted people.
He was found by the three-judge panel, on the basis of evidence and identification by Holocaust survivors, to have been the Treblinka death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible,” who helped operate the gas chambers where nearly a million Jews perished during World War II.
Demjanjuk’s attorney, Yoram Sheftel, based his appeal on the same defense arguments that failed during the year-long trial — that his client was a victim of mistaken identity.
A five-justice panel of the high court will hear the appeal next December.
Sheftel asked that the conviction be overturned on grounds of insufficient evidence or reasonable doubt.
He charged in his petition that a lynch-mob atmosphere surrounded the trial because of media bias against the defendant, and that provocative remarks by public officials adversely influenced the court.
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