German prosecutors are expected this week to advance their
war-crimes inquiry against John Demjanjuk, 88, who is accused of
herding people to gas chambers in the Nazi death camp Treblinka,
dpa reported.
The news was reported by magazine Der Spiegel ahead of publication of
its Monday issue.
An identity card indicating Demjanjuk was in the SS paramilitary group
which ran the camps was the key to his conviction by an Israeli court
in 1988. But the Israeli Supreme Court freed him in 1993 over concern
that this certificate might be a Soviet forgery.
The certificate contains the Ukrainian's photograph, an SS service
number and notes of his service at two Nazi sites.
It will be flown to Munich this week, where Bavarian police forensic
experts will check it, Spiegel reported. The document was kept in
Washington and was only allowed to be taken outside the United States
by a federal official, the magazine added.
Spiegel said Eli Rosenbaum, who heads the US war crimes investigations
office, would take it to Germany.
He and a US historian would also meet with German federal police. In
1987, German federal police experts pointed out discrepancies on the
certificate which led to doubts about its authenticity. The US side was
to ask if those doubts still remain valid.
Spiegel said the Munich prosecutors, who have taken over the file, were
also moving to interview witnesses still alive and obtain documentary
evidence before applying for the extradition of Demjanjuk from the
United States.
He lived in Germany as a refugee before being resettled in the United
States in 1952. He is alleged to have been a brutal camp guard
nicknamed Ivan the Terrible who operated gas chambers that killed
29,000 people.