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Sheftel - Defense attorney (Israeli)

Sheftel Opening Address in transcripts07.html

DEMJANJUK TRIAL
(Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 1987 - Apr. 24, 1988)
SUMMARY of English-language TRANSCRIPTS

Yoram Sheftel; T006784 - 6827; 1987/07/27; Vol. 11
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T006784f - Opening address for defense by Yoram Sheftel
- Sheftel apologizes:
(1) to survivors who had to withstand cross examination on matters that the defense conceded and considered incontrovertible ["facts" of the Holocaust]
No such questions were put to the survivors in Dusseldorf. [Why not?]
(2) to the court for having to deal with dozens of pointless objections.
(3) to the prosecution for suspicions of defense [non-cooperation of O'Connor]
- Sheftel decries "the atmosphere outside of the court", to which Levin replies he has no control.

T006786 - Sheftel states that he has attempted to get "expert witnesses and we were expressly told that they do not wish to testify because of the atmosphere surrounding the trial and because they do not want to be identified." Levin refuses to accept this.

T006787 -The defense objects "to what was not said" ... "by the prosecution in its historical presentation" which pertains to tav/149.

T006788 - "... beginning of annihilation of the Jewish people in Europe" on Sept. 1, 1939, was the result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact signed on Aug. 31, 1939. In Mein Kampf in 1923, Hitler vowed that he would never allow Germany to fight on two fronts as they did in WWI. He would make an alliance with either East or West, and for WWII he made it with the Soviet Union.

T006789 - Sheftel presents WWI background. In August 1914, the German General Von Gluk attacked West (France) successfully but, because of Russian advance in East Prussia, he was forced to divert 8 divisions East where (at the Mazurian Lakes and Tanenburg) Hindenburg and Ludendorf captured 100,000 out of 250,000 Russian soldiers and Mackensen captured 125,000. This allowed the French to counterattack in early September, rout the Germans and save France.

T006790 - Since 1933 Hitler tried to reach an agreement with Britain and France so he could deal with the "Red Hammer and Sickle", but was unsuccessful. So Hitler signed the "Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement which led to the merger of the Brown Swastika and the Red Hammer and Sickle ..."

T006791 - "The explicit part [of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact] refers to establishing peace in Europe and an expert [Shiffrin?] of ours on our behalf will prove that the Soviet Union is not a nation which has a KGB, but rather the KGB is a terrorist organization which has a country called the Soviet Union. In other words, the signatories of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement in effect signed tav/149. It is the very same hand."

T006793 - Sheftel refers to documents of OSI [found by Nishnic in garbage] referring to Rajchman and Otto Horn. [Presumably], "Tom Fusi who signed the identification parades of Rajchman's [tav/185] was not in fact present at all."

T006793 - "As concerns Otto Horn, there are two memoranda of 1986 [tav/186, 187], but we have his statement from as long ago as 1979 which escaped the prosecution's notice altogether." [The transcripts erroneously(?) refer to April 14 and 20, 1979, and Avroti as assistant director of OSI.]

[From DEMANUK.006 and DEMANUK.011, the photo ID session occurred on Nov. 14, 1979, in the presence of Moscowitz, Dougherty, Garand and Gerard Charig. Both Garand and Dougherty wrote their reports within a week (i.e. about Nov. 20, 1979) and forwarded them to Arthur Sinai, deputy director of the OSI. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the OSI had talked to Horn even earlier.]

T006794 - The defense hopes to get Elizabeth Loftus to testify on Eyewitness Identification. Will compare Demjanjuk case with Walus case.

T006795 - Alfred Billage [Billitz?] was reputedly known as Ivan according to "the evidence of three survivors who appeared before the Polish War Crimes Commission": Finkelstein, Balchanski and Hanoch Brenner, who are all dead. Defense has approached the Polish War Crimes Commission and "Berlin Document Center in order to try and find the full text of these testimonies."

T006796 - Via court action in Washington, it was revealed that 21 witnesses did not make a photo ID identification. Thus for the 5 eyewitnesses who identified Demjanjuk as Ivan, 29 did not.

T006797 - Sheftel wants OSI to reveal all their evidence to Israeli court. "I know that a representative of the OSI is in this hall and is in fact listening ..."

T006798f - Blatman objects to aspersions against OSI, but Levin allows it. Sheftel says it wouldn't hurt the cause of justice for prosecution to convince OSI to hand over material.

T006800 - Defense has leaked document "of the OSI appealing to the immigration authorities in order to invalidate that visa" of a witness for defense from Poland.

T006801 - The Russian translation of tav/149 is signed by MGB [of UkrSSR]
T006802 - Defense will bring experts to discredit tav/149.
T006804f - Will discredit the testimony of Altman and Smith with that of Edna Arovinson [Robertson?] and Hava Tuscon [??]. Sheftel even claims that the number [1393] is different [??].

T006805 - There is no extradition treaty between Germany and Israel, such that witnesses from Germany are not testifying under caution (i.e. there is no way to punish them if they lie). Levin rejects this because it is too late.
T006807 - Same for the United States with Epstein.

T006807 - OSI leaked document reveals that Altman, Epstein and Cantu studied an alleged skeleton of Mengele for Israel and OSI and issued a report on Nov. 15, 1985(?) unanimously confirming its genuineness [???]

T006808 - "The outcome of that meeting on Nov. 15, 1985, was that Altman and Cantu and Epstein are unreliable." ... "The very same people who were present at the meeting, are the very same people who are conducting the prosecution here, Eli Gabai and the prosecution team and Dennis Gouldman of the prosecution team here in this very same case."

T006809 - Levin: "Could you explain why you did not ask these questions of those witnesses?"

Sheftel: "Because we didn't know." It was leaked 3 weeks ago. Defense could not cross examine Patricia Smith effectively without this material, but Gabai and Gouldman were fully aware of it.

T006812 - "In other words, the testimony of both Altman and Prof. Patricia Smith has not been formerly recognized by the scientific community."

T006814 - Sheftel refers to testimony of Scheffler and Helge Grabitz.
T006815f - Refers to expert [Shiffrin?] on KGB, which is responsible for 50 million deaths, 10 million in the cause of collectivization.

T006817 - Dorner objects to reference to collectivization: "Because collectivization, what happened, has absolutely nothing, nothing whatever to do with this case."
[The judges are very touchy about attacks on the Soviet Union, collectivization, famine, etc. Guilty conscience?]

T006819 - Leaked OSI document of Nov. 16, 1979, "gives the summary of a conversation with Professor Scheffler before he appeared in Cleveland. And Professor Scheffler is warning the OSI, that if it is impossible to prove that between Sobibor and Trawniki there was a constant rotation which was never noted down, if that cannot be proven and it was not proven, not even by so much as a hint, then the whole value of this document is very much in doubt." In his testimony, Scheffler did not mention this conversation with Bernard Dougherty on Nov. 16, 1979.

T006825 - "Count Nikolai Tolstoy is an unquestioned expert on the period towards the end of the Second World War, the different armies, which fought or intended to fight against the Soviet forces, on the side of the German, and the Axis forces." He will support Demjanjuk's alibi.

T006826 - Kurt Franz is due to be released next year (1988), but he will never be brought to trial in Israel because of Wiedergutmachung = German reparation payments.

**** END Sheftel Opening Address in Vol. 11 ****
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