BERLIN (JTA) — A witness in the war crimes trial of John Demjanjuk trial may himself be guilty of crimes against humanity.
Court investigators learned earlier this year that a man named Alex Nagorny murdered Jews in the Treblinka death camp, and a man by that name is due to testify in the Demjanjuk trial.
Demjanjuk is being tried on charges of accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews in the Sobibor death camp in 1943.
His trial, which began Nov. 30 in Munich, was postponed early on because of the defendant’s poor health.
Demjanjuk’s attorney, Ulrich Busch, argued on the first day of the trial that it was unfair to try his client, whom he said was forced to work for the Germans, when people like Nagorny were never tried for their alleged crimes.
The court responded that an investigation was under way, which might lead to charges against Nagorny and another witness.
According to The Associated Press, the scheduled witness Nagorny had told investigators earlier this year that he was stationed at the Flossenburg concentration camp with Demjanjuk.
Meanwhile, according to the Bild Zeitung newspaper, prosecutors in the city of Ulm are looking into whether murder charges are possible against Demjanjuk for allegedly driving his truck over a man in 1947 near the city.
Michael Bischofberger, a spokesman for the state prosecutor in Ulm, told the German Press Agency that he could not confirm that the victim was Jewish, as the Bild reported. Bischofberger said the results of the investigation would be presented to the state prosecutor handling Demjanjuk’s trial in Munich.
