A problematic identification card appears to be the crucial piece of evidence in the trial of alleged war criminal John Demjanjuk, now in its 10th month in Jerusalem district court.
The prosecution says it proves the 66-year-old Ukrainian-born, retired automobile worker from Cleveland, Ohio is the brutal Treblinka death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible,” who operated the gas chambers.
The card bears a photograph, allegedly of Demjanjuk at about age 22. It is said to have been issued to him at Trawniki, an SS camp in Poland where volunteer prisoners of war from the Red Army were trained for guard duty at Treblinka and other camps.
The card was obtained from Soviet sources. Defense lawyers insist it is a KGB forgery and have produced expert witnesses to back them up, The latest, who took the stand Monday, is a Turkish-born American anthropologist, Professor Yasser Mehmed Iscan, a specialist in the human skeleton from the University of Florida.
Iscan was called to refute the testimony of an expert witness for the prosecution, Professor Patricia Smith, who was questioned several months ago. At that time, Smith showed the court a video montage to demonstrate that the card is authentic. She said there was a very high probability that the photograph is genuine.
Iscan who disputed this, showed the court how superimpositions on the Trawniki photograph of recent photographs of the accused indicated differences. He said he used this method when called on by the Florida police to compare an unidentified skull with a photograph on a driver’s license.
Iscan spent most of his time on the stand establishing his professional credentials. He said he was called upon regularly by reputable journals of anthropology to scan articles submitted to them for their expertise.
The professional standing of another expert witness for the defense, Anita Pritchard, was cast in doubt earlier this year when she collapsed under cross examination by the prosecution. She later attempted to commit suicide.
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