IOL | 17Jun2010 | Sapa-AFP
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20100617150209620C295040
'Nazi guard' trial extended by
three months
Berlin - The trial of a 90-year-old accused of 27 900 counts of
accessory to murder during his alleged time as a Nazi death camp guard
in 1943 has been extended by three months, a German court said Thursday.
John Demjanjuk's last hearing is planned for December 22, 2010, the
regional superior court in the southern city of Munich said in a
statement. Previously, hearings had been scheduled until September
14,2010.
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, whose family says has serious health
problems, has appeared at the trial in a wheelchair or a stretcher and
has not spoken in court since proceedings began on November 30, 2010
last year.
Doctors have judged Demjanjuk fit to stand trial but have limited his
time in court to two hearings of 90 minutes per day. Several hearings
have nonetheless been cancelled because he felt ill.
He stands accused of being a guard at the Sobibor death camp in
modern-day Poland, where an estimated 250,000 people died, and has
always denied the charges against him.
In a statement read out by his lawyer in April, Demjanjuk described the
trial as "torture", adding: "I find it an unbearable injustice that
Germany is trying to make me, a prisoner of war, into a war criminal
with this trial." - Sapa-AFP