U.S. slams court decision to halt Demjanjuk's deportation

[IndianaGreen]

Source: Haaretz

Last update - 19:16 04/04/2009

U.S. slams court decision to halt Demjanjuk's deportation

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

The U.S. Department of Justice criticized a court decision to halt the deportation of suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany for possible trial.

Demjanjuk's extradition was requested so that he could face charges he helped murder at least 29,000 Jews as a Nazi death camp guard, his son said Friday.

The retired autoworker, who lives in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, argued that given his frail health, the deportation would have amounted to torture. "All of Demjanjuk's submissions should be denied, as they are based on speculation, erroneous assumptions, and frivolous claims that legitimate German legal proceedings against him are designed to cause him suffering and would subject him to torture," the Office of Special Investigations said in a statement on Friday. "He cannot meet his burden of proving that it is more likely than not that he would face torture if removed to Germany and his motions and application therefore must fail.‬"

A German justice official also denied on Saturday that the Demjanjuk's deportation would amount to torture.

"That is cynical and absolutely intolerable," Bavarian Secretary of Justice Beate Merk said.

Merk said she now does not know how the case will proceed.

"For now, this is a matter for the Americans," she said.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1076286.html

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He might not have been Ivan the Terrible, but he wore the SS uniform and he was a guard at a concentration camp, and he lied about it to US immigration officials.

[Aloha Spirit]

1. Here' the DOJ press release from yesterday

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-crm-308.html

" alleges that during most of 1943 Anton Geiser served as an armed SS Death’s Head guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, Germany; that Geiser’s duties included escorting prisoners to slave labor sites and standing guard from the camp’s watch towers; and that he was under orders to shoot any prisoner attempting escape. The court document also alleges that Geiser served as a guard at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and the Arolsen subcamp. In addition, the court document charges that Geiser guarded prisoners as they were transported from Buchenwald to Arolsen and as they were evacuated from Arolsen as Allied forces approached. "

[bluestateguy]

2. This has gone on longer than the OJ trial

nt

[Berry Cool]

12. You're not exaggerating, either.

They were arguing over deporting this guy back when I was in high school, and I'm getting closer to 50 than to those days.

[tonysam]

19. I Thought He Had Died YEARS Ago.

n/t

[DJ13]

3. he wore the SS uniform and he was a guard at a concentration camp

Should US soldiers that served in Gitmo be worried that 50 years from now they will face prosecution?

[Iggo]

5. Yes.

[IndianaGreen]

7. If they violated the UCMJ and US and international law, yes!

Let's begin by extraditing Bush and his neocon gang of war criminals to The Hague to face justice.

[GOPNotForMe]

18. Possibly. Let's treat each issue as separate and distinct so as not to confuse them. nt

[cosmicone]

4. Why not extradite Israeli soldiers who kill and commit atrocities

against palestinian civilians? Why do they get a free pass?

[IndianaGreen]

6. There is no moral equivalency between the systematic extermination of an entire nation

which was the Holocaust, to the sad and tragic conflict in the Middle East, a conflict made worse during the past 8-years of the Bush regime.

[cosmicone]

9. How is there no moral equivalency?

A overwhelmingly superior military force kills innocent civilians systematically in both instances. The only difference is magnitude. IDF is every bit Nazi-like in the use of cluster bombs, phosphorous bombs and attacks on primarily civilian targets like schools and mosques.

Yeah yeah yeah -- we know how those weaselly Palestinians put rocket launchers inside civilian buildings forcing the poor IDF to destroy -- IDF is so helpless in all that carnage and totally innocent :sarcasm:

[cali]

13. I think you need to study history.

really, really need to. And that goes for those here that think that Gitmo is the equivalent of a Nazi death camp.

The Israelis should indeed be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes. So should bushco, but comparing what the Israelis have done to what the Nazis did is just ignorant- and stupid.

[atreides1]

20. What Nation Would That Be

The last time I checked my history, the Jews that were murdered came from all over Europe.

So which nation specifically was being systematically exterminated?

And let's not forget the others like the Gypsies, Communists, the mentally disabled, and the victims that came from all of Europe.

[Igel]

21. Huh?

Nation
A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.
The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out.
A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.
The government of a sovereign state.
A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: "Historically the Ukrainians are an ancient nation which has persisted and survived through terrible calamity" (Robert Conquest).

Polysemy
the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be used (in different contexts) to express two or more different meanings

"... infants just beginning to acquire language already understand the cooperative logic of imperative communication and second, that already at this early stage, language use is based upon assumptions of cooperativeness and rationality." http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~gcla08/upload/abstr43.pdf

Plato was obviously wrong. We don't forget all we knew at birth. Sometimes we forget it later in life.

[LostinVA]

15. Start your own thread and stop trying to hijack this one

[bluestateguy]

17. ugh

[iandhr]

8. I thought the Israeli supreme court cleared this guy

can some one fill me in

[cosmicone]

10. Yes.

He was found not guilty of being Ivan-the-terrible which he isn't. He was Ivan-the-much-less-terrible so he was sent back to the US.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Germans seek 'Nazi guard' charges

Page last updated at 17:51 GMT, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Germans seek 'Nazi guard' charges

German investigators have said they have enough evidence for charges to be brought against an alleged Nazi death camp guard who now lives in the US.

They said they had obtained new files that would prove John Demjanjuk, 88, was responsible for the death of 29,000 Jews at a camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

They said they would now ask German prosecutors to request his extradition.

Mr Demjanjuk was sentenced to death in Israel in the 1980s, but was then acquitted and returned to the US.

Born Ivan Demjanjuk in Ukraine, he had migrated to the US in the 1950s. He denies any involvement in Nazi crimes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7721631.stm

DEMJANJUK CASE TIMELINE
1951: Gains entry into the US, claiming he spent most of the war as a German prisoner
1977: First charged with war crimes, accused of being "Ivan the Terrible"
1986: Extradited to Israel
1993: Israeli Supreme Court overturns conviction, ruling that he is not Ivan the Terrible
2002: Loses US citizenship after a judge said there was proof he worked at Nazi camps
2005: A judge rules in favour of deportation to his native Ukraine
2006: Loses appeal against deportation
2007: Loses final Supreme Court appeal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7409562.stm

[LostinVA]

16. Germany isn't Israel

[LostinVA]

14. He deserves to be deported, triedm and given whatever sentence the German court deems appropriate

He is a war criminal WHO LIED TO GET INTO THE US.He should be legally deported for the latter reason alone.

[Summermoondancer]

22. Ok now this is just stupid

we refuse to allow poor Mexican farmers to immigrate and become citizens but we allow NAzi death camp guards to immigrate and become US citizens and then we actually thumb our nose at Germany who has requested he face justice for his crime?