Alleged Nazi guard appeal denied
CINCINNATI (AP) - January 30, 2008 A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was
no basis to John Demjanjuk's challenge of a December 2005 ruling
that he could be deported to his native Ukraine or to Germany or
Poland.
The government initially claimed Demjanjuk was the notoriously
sadistic guard at the Treblinka camp known as "Ivan the
Terrible." Officials later concluded that he was not, but a judge
ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II prove Demjanjuk was
a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps.
Demjanjuk, 87, lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He
has steadfastly denied that he ever helped the Nazis, arguing that
he served in the Soviet Army and was captured by Germany in 1942
and became a prisoner of war.
His attorney, John Broadley, said at the time of oral arguments
in November that whichever way the decision went, the losing side
likely would appeal for a hearing before all the judges of the 6th
Circuit or to the U.S. Supreme Court. A message seeking comment was
left for Broadley on Wednesday.
The decision is the latest in a lengthy legal fight. The Justice
Department first brought charges in 1977 seeking to revoke
Demjanjuk's citizenship and to deport him for falsifying
information on his applications when entering the U.S. in 1952 and
to become a citizen in 1958.
His U.S. citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and
revoked again in 2002. He was extradited to Israel in 1986 and was
under a death sentence, until Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1993
that he was not the same man as Ivan.
The current deportation case is based on evidence uncovered by
the Justice Department that Demjanjuk was a different guard. That
evidence led courts to again strip Demjanjuk of his citizenship on
the basis of the original falsified information.
Broadley had argued in briefs filed in July 2007 that Demjanjuk
likely would be tortured in Ukraine if sent back there because the
U.S. government never sufficiently disavowed its previous claim
that Demjanjuk was Ivan. The government contends there is no basis
for the argument that Demjanjuk would be tortured.
In his latest attempt to avoid deportation for Demjanjuk,
Broadley argued that Michael J. Creppy, the chief immigration judge
at the time of the 2005 ruling on a final removal order, was purely
an administrative official and not entitled to act as an
immigration judge.
The appeals court panel rejected that argument and refused to
review Creppy's ruling, which had been upheld by the Board of
Immigration Appeals.
"The word 'Chief' does not somehow alter the fundamental
meaning of the words 'Immigration Judge' to make this position
entirely managerial, as Demjanjuk claims it to be," the court said
in the opinion.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)