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Will Zuzak; DEMANUK.006 = Lily Zuzak on Demjanjuk - OSI; 1993-09-21
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Dear Subscribers:
The following article written by my wife, Lily, is a perfect example
of censorship being practised by the Montreal Gazette. In December 1989, my
wife was one of a group of Ukrainians invited by Norman Webster, editor of
the Gazette, to discuss coverage of Ukrainian issues. When she complained
about a lack of appropriate coverage on the Demjanjuk issue, specifically,
the destruction of exculpatory material by the OSI, she was invited to send
materials to the Gazette and to write an article for publication.
My wife did as requested and even supplied the Gazette with the
addresses and phone numbers of members of the defense team. Sadly, the
article was not published and the hate mongering on the part of the Gazette
against Mr. Demjanjuk even increased.
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OSI MISCONDUCT CONFIRMED IN DEMJANJUK CASE
Documents retrieved from garbage dumpsters are among those before
the courts in a law suit against the United States Department of
Justice's Office of Special Investigations.
OSI, set up to pursue alleged Nazi war criminals presumed living
in the U.S., is under attack for methods it used in a 12-year
investigation and prosecution of John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk was
stripped of his American citizenship in 1981 after it was
concluded he had falsified his birthplace when applying for entry
to the U.S. Extradited to Israel early in 1986, he was
subsequently indicted on charges of being the infamous "Ivan" of
Treblinka death camp during World War II, convicted of war crimes
and sentenced to death by an Israeli tribunal in 1988. Facts
brought to light by the law suit in the U.S. resulted in Israel's
Supreme Court granting postponement of his Appeal to May, 1990.
OSI's misconduct underwent serious scrutiny when Edward Nishnic,
Demjanjuk's son-in-law, began receiving undisclosed OSI documents
relating to the case from an anonymous source through the mail.
Mr. Nishnic states he later learned they had been salvaged from
OSI trash bags thrown into dumpsters near its offices. To date,
OSI does not dispute the authenticity of the junked material.
In a memo plucked from the trash, OSI attorney, Bruce Einhorn
outlined his reasons for withholding files from the Freedom of
Information Agency in 1986, among them concern that release of
them could "in all probability, reveal (and could easily
undermine and prejudice) the Israeli prosecution strategy." That
OSI suppressed, as well, evidence conflicting with its own
prosecution strategy in Demjanjuk's 1981 denaturalization trial
is proved by documents now in Nishnic's possession.
Court action initiated October, 1986, forced OSI to respond to
earlier FOIA requests to release Soviet interrogation reports.
One of these, the Danilchenko Protocol, obtained December, 1987,
places Demjanjuk at Sobibor death camp from at least March, 1943,
to early 1944, thus contradicting the testimony of all
eyewitnesses in both the American denaturalization and Jerusalem
trials. The eyewitnesses claim "Ivan" was at Treblinka until a
camp uprising on August 2, 1943.
Upon direct orders from Attorney General Edwin Meese, OSI then
released 26 heavily edited Reports of Investigation of Treblinka
survivors. None had identified John Demjanjuk as "Ivan".
Nishnic launched further action September, 1989, attempting to
secure OSI reports of meetings with Treblinka personnel: Kurt
Franz, deputy camp commandant, currently serving sentence in a
German prison, and Franz Suchomel, an SS Treblinka sergeant.
Documentation also shows interviews were conducted with Karl
Streibel, a commandant at the Trawniki facility where "Ivan"
received his guard training, and Richard Glazar, a Treblinka
survivor who has refused to talk to Demjanjuk's defense because
of a promise he says he made to an investigator in the case. OSI
claims it has no records of such interviews in their files, and
accuses Nishnic of employing a "mole" to "steal" government
documents. Nishnic maintains OSI has been deliberately destroying
exculpatory material it did not want to release. In December,
1989, the Court ordered Norman Moscowitz and John Horrigan, OSI
attorneys involved, to submit to deposition proceedings to
explain what happened at the meetings.
A central figure in the controversy has been Otto Horn, a former
guard at Treblinka, who was interviewed by four OSI officials in
November of 1979. Bernard Dougherty, investigator, and George
Garand, historian, attended the Horn interview, preparing reports
immediately and forwarding their findings to Arthur Sinai, Deputy
Director at OSI. Norman Moscowitz, who had also been present at
the Horn interview, sponsored Horn's testimony at Demjanjuk's
1981 denaturalization trial via a videotaped deposition. Horn's
testimony upheld eyewitness survivors' claims as to "Ivan's"
whereabouts and behaviour in 1942-43. In 1986, Dougherty and
Garand each prepared new, sworn affidavits describing the 1979
Horn interview, which were submitted to the Israeli prosecution.
Neither individual referred to any previous reports. A photocopy
of Dougherty's 1979 report was pulled from garbage in 1987 and
submitted to Demjanjuk's defense counsel, Yoram Sheftel. More
than one year after the Jerusalem trial ended, both Dougherty's
and Garand's original 1979 reports were found, again in discarded
OSI material. They differ strikingly from the 1986 affidavits.
Horn's physical description of "Ivan", given prior to having been
shown photographs in 1979, was omitted from the affidavits. The
description did not match Demjanjuk. The fact Horn selected at
least two other people (not Demjanjuk) is also missing from the
later reports. Horn's statement that he had never seen "Ivan
beating, shooting, or otherwise abusing any Treblinka prisoner"
was changed, in 1986, to read "Ivan had a reputation for
viciousness...using a knife to cut the ears off of victims."
Neither Dougherty nor Garand recorded Exhibit numbers of
photographs selected by Horn in the 1979 reports. Significantly,
the 1986 affidavits have Dougherty listing photographs 2-C and 3-
E, while Garand wrote 2-F and 3-E; unusual, in that proper
photospreads contain only one picture per spread of a suspect.
How and why OSI has acted as it did in the John Demjanjuk case
remains the focus of Edward Nishnic's efforts to ensure that all
available evidence comes before Israel's Supreme Court this
spring. OSI continues to resist providing information it clearly
sought, using whatever legal avenues it can find to avoid
disclosure. The final outcome is yet to be decided. It can only
be hoped that, in the process, neither an innocent man nor the
American justice system will be the victims.
Lily Zuzak
Charitable Committee in Aid of John Demjanjuk's Family
Montreal Branch
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Will Zuzak; DEMANUK.006 = Lily Zuzak on Demjanjuk - OSI; 1993-09-21
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