The U.S. Justice Department and Jewish groups were using every legal means available this week to fight the return of John Demjanjuk to the United States.
The Justice Department filed repeated motions with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati urging the full court to reconsider a three-judge panel’s recent ruling allowing Demjanjuk back into the country.
Jewish groups were also urging U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Israel’s Supreme Court meanwhile was expected Wednesday to decide if Demjanjuk would be freed or tried for other wartime crimes, following last week’s recommendation by the Israeli attorney general not to prosecute him further.
In a July 29 ruling, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned Demjanjuk’s conviction as the notorious Treblinka death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible,” but said there was compelling evidence he served as an SS guard at other concentration camps, including Sobibor.
Last week, Israeli Attorney General Yosef Harish said another trial would not be in the Israeli public’s interest. The Israeli Supreme Court was expected to accept Harish’s recommendation and free Demjanjuk.
If the full U.S. appeals court continued to take no action to stay the three-judge panel’s decision, the 73-year-old former Cleveland auto worker was likely to return to the United States by the end of the week.
On Tuesday, just a day before the Israeli Supreme Court decision was expected, the Justice Department made yet another filing in the case, again asking that the Cincinnati court’s ruling be stayed.
In Jerusalem, Demjanjuk’s son-in-law, Edward Nishnic, acknowledged that if Demjanjuk is freed he will try to return to the United States, rather than return to his native Ukraine, which has granted him asylum.
‘VOICE OF MORAL CONSCIENCE WILL FOLLOW’
Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio), a prominent Demjanjuk supporter, flew to Israel to escort Demjanjuk home.
Meanwhile, the World Jewish Congress’ American Section held an emergency session Tuesday, at which it vowed to fight Demjanjuk’s return by any legal means necessary.
On Tuesday, the WJC sent a letter to Attorney General Reno, urging the Justice Department to appeal the lower court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Justice Department is fighting Demjanjuk’s return on the grounds that, despite the Israeli court ruling, Demjanjuk still committed other war crimes and lied to immigration officials in entering and becoming a citizen of the United States.
Demjanjuk was stripped of his citizenship in 1981 and extradited to Israel in 1986.
But Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern said Tuesday that the department would “have to respect and obey” the lower court order unless “on further review the court concludes that the Justice Department is correct and Demjanjuk is ineligible” to return.
In New York, Rabbi Avi Weiss, religious leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and president of AMCHA-Coalition of Jewish Concerns, was planning to leave for Cleveland to demonstrate in front of Demjanjuk’s home with about 10 people if Demjanjuk is returned there.
Weiss said, “Our message is that the voice of moral conscience will follow him wherever he goes as we followed (Kurt) Waldheim,” the former Austrian president who hid his Nazi past.
(Contributing to this report were JTA staff writer Susan Birnbaum in New York and JTA correspondent Cynthia Mann in Jerusalem.)
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