Alleged Nazi in German prison on charges

updated 4:37 p.m. ET May 12, 2009

MUNICH - Sitting in a wheelchair and breathing through a nasal tube, retired auto worker John Demjanjuk listened silently Tuesday as a German judge read a 21-page warrant accusing him of acting as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 people at a Nazi death camp.

Prosecutors in Munich made clear they hope to press ahead quickly with the case against the 89-year-old, saying after the longtime Ohio resident arrived in Germany that formal charges could be filed within weeks.

Demjanjuk said nothing as an interpreter translated the warrant into his native Ukrainian, his lawyer Guenther Maull told reporters afterward.

"He understood what was being read to him," said Maull, who immediately filed a challenge against the warrant, arguing the evidence was not solid and Germany's jurisdiction questionable.

Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier who spent World War II as a Nazi POW and never hurt anyone.

But Nazi-era documents obtained by U.S. justice authorities and shared with German prosecutors include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at the Sobibor death camp and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki. Both sites were in Nazi-occupied Poland.

'Accusation of monstrous crimes'
Efforts to prosecute Demjanjuk began in 1977 and have involved courts and government officials from at least five countries on three continents.

Sobibor survivor Samuel Lerer, who was 16 when he arrived at the camp in the spring of 1942, welcomed Demjanjuk's deportation.

"My sense of justice is that he go on trial," Lerer told The Associated Press from his Greenbriar, New Jersey home.

"This is about being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases. That is an accusation of monstrous crimes. At all times, we owe it the victims to clear it up," Bavaria's state justice minister, Beate Merk, said. "Above all in Germany, we have a very special responsibility."

Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison in Germany.

Weighing charges
Prosecutors said formally pressing charges could happen "within a few weeks" providing "no exonerating arguments are made." That would be fast, as it can take months under Germany's justice system for charges to be pressed.

A key step lies ahead: determining whether Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial. Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said Monday his father is dying of leukemic bone marrow disease and claimed he would not survive a trans-Atlantic flight.

Video   Suspected Nazi camp guard imprisoned May 12: Retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk arrives in Germany, where he is accused of being an accessory to the murder of thousands of Jews during World War II. msnbc.com

Dramatic photos last month showed Demjanjuk wincing in apparent pain as he was removed by immigration agents from his home in Seven Hills, Ohio, during an earlier attempt to deport him to Germany. However, images taken only days earlier and released by the U.S. government showed him entering his car unaided.

Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors, said they had called for an expert opinion. He said it could take up to two weeks for that determination to be made, because a doctor would have to examine Demjanjuk and observe him over time.

He indicated that Demjanjuk's health was satisfactory on arrival, according to a doctor who examined him. Demjanjuk understood what was being said to him and answered "yes" and "no" in German, Winkler said.

Merk said despite health concerns, the issue centered on justice.

"Murder does not fall under the statute of limitations, regardless of the perpetrator's age," she said. "If the accusations are true, a conviction and punishment are indispensable."

Earlier Tuesday, Demjanjuk — stripped of his citizenship by a U.S. court in 2002 — arrived in Munich from Cleveland aboard a private jet that taxied directly into a hangar. Munich prosecutors said he slept for most of the trans-Atlantic flight.

From the airport, he rode in a police-escorted ambulance to a special medical unit at Stadelheim prison, where Adolf Hitler spent several weeks in 1922 after being arrested.

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