Dr. Robert Servatius, West German attorney who handled the defense of Adolf Eichmann last summer, said today he would appeal an expected verdict of guilty for his client on grounds that the tribunal was incompetent to try the former Gestapo colonel.
Dr. Servatius, who is expected to arrive in Israel tonight to begin preparations for reading of the judgment and the verdict, made the statement in an interview with the Bonn correspondent of an Israeli newspaper. The three-judge court which tried Eichmann will resume sitting on December 11 to read the judgment and the verdict against the man charged with a key role in the Nazi wartime slaughter of 6,000,000 European Jewish men, women and children.
The West German lawyer said the appeal would not involve Eichmann’s deeds as a Gestapo official which could not be denied. He said he would argue that Eichmann was kidnapped in another country and brought to Israel and that the Jerusalem court was therefore incompetent in the case. He added that if his appeal was rejected, he would ask President Ben-Zvi for clemency.
Asked what his client thought the verdict would be, Dr. Servatius replied that Eichmann was sure he would get the death sentence. He added that Eichmann “truly believes the prediction of a gypsy fortune teller who said he would not live to his 57th birthday.” Eichmann will be 56 next March.
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