The authors of this UABA statement are Michael Waris Jr., chairman of the board of governors, Andrew Fylypovych, president, and Lidia Boyduy Shandor, former recording secretary.

The Ukrainian American Bar Association is a small group of American lawyers who are very concerned that an American citizen, John Demjanjuk, has been illegally stripped of his citizenship, deported, extradited to Israel, tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a Nazi war criminal, despite the fact that he is an innocent man.

Fortunately for Mr. Demjanjuk, who has always maintained that he has been mistakenly identified as "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka, remarkable revelations since his sentencing have caused the Supreme Court of Israel wisely to defer the argument of his appeal to May 14.  A few weeks remain to rectify what could be a horrible miscarriage of justice, a permanent black mark on the honor of American and Israeli law.

We have spent much time studying the facts and legal proceedings in which Mr. Demjanjuk has been involved over the past 12 years.  We have tried to assist an impoverished defense to fight against great odds.  Frankly, now the defense needs more help than we can give it.  This is an urgent and candid appeal to everyone who prizes justice, in particular the media and various governmental authorities who are especially equipped, at this late date, to assist an unjustly accused human being who is facing death.

For reasons which we find difficult to fathom, perhaps because of the unsavory nature of the issue � and the universal hatred for the Nazis and the horror which they have perpetrated on the world � much, indeed most, of the media has stayed away from the defense aspects of the case, despite constant pleas from John Demjanjuk's family and other supporters.  In fact, we have not seen any serious investigative reporting focusing on the merits until the CBS News program, "60 Minutes," aired on February 25, more than 12 years after legal proceedings first began.

As a result of its ability to engage in on-location investigation in Poland (an area until very recent days closed to Demjanjuk's defense), "60 Minutes" revealed the explosive news: A Polish woman, Maria Dudek, told a sordid war story indicating that her husband, having accepted money, forced her to sleep with "Ivan the Terrible," who would venture into the village for drunken revelry.  This same woman disclosed a critically important fact to "60 Minutes" � Ivan the Terrible's real name was Ivan Marczenko!  Until this disclosure, no one connected with Treblinka had ever spoken "Ivan the Terrible's" real name.  He was simply known by his first name, Ivan.

Mrs. Dudek's disclosure of "Ivan the Terrible's" last name might have meant little in itself.  But, another fact disclosed by "60 Minutes" makes it of great importance in proving the real identity of "Ivan the Terrible."  "60 Minutes" was informed by the Polish Ministry of Justice's Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland that its archives contained a list of guards at Treblinka, among whom was one named Iwan Marczenko.  With this second item of vital information, of course, Maria's declaration that Iwan Marczenko was known to her and others in her village as "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka takes on great importance.

The foregoing archives of the Polish Ministry of Justice (Polish Archives) are a respected and highly important source of evidence of Nazi crimes in Poland.  To this very day, however, they have remained closed to Demjanjuk's defense team.  Compounding the difficulties the defense has had to face in this respect is the fact that these Polish Archives have always been freely available to the United States Department of Justice and the Israeli government.

Significantly, the Department of Justice has described the work of the foregoing Polish Commission to be thorough and impartial, its records voluminous.  Indeed, Allan Ryan, then director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigation (OSI), largely as a result of his personal review of these Polish Archives, decided that all charges against an earlier OSI target, Frank Walus, should be dropped because of the absence of Mr. Walus's name from these archival records as well as the fact that there were no allegations against Mr. Walus or anybody for whom Mr. Walus could have been mistaken in these records.  These facts were enough to convince even Mr. Ryan that the 12 eyewitnesses who had testified to seeing Mr. Walus perform Nazi atrocities had erred.  As Mr. Ryan reported to Michael Arndt, The Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1984:

Another fact of major importance reported by "60 Minutes" is that the very name Polish Archives upon which the Justice Department placed so much reliance in the Walus case did not contain the name of John Demjanjuk; indeed, as discussed below, they explained precisely as they did in the case of Mr. Walus that "we do not have any data concerning Iwan Demjanjuk..." [emphasis added].

But � here's the real shocker: This was not news to the Department of Justice.  Long before the denaturalization trial began in February of 1981, the Justice Department had received from the same Polish Archives information identical to that which had caused it to drop the Walus case.  This time, however, the Justice Department buried this highly exculpatory evidence and proceeded to fabricate a case against Mr. Demjanjuk.

This reprehensible disdain for constitutional due process on the part of the United States Department of Justice demands a more expanded and specific exposition.  On August 31, 1979, the Justice Department received a letter from this very same Polish Commission which said, as above noted, that it did not have any data concerning John Demjanjuk.

Since the commission's job was to investigate Nazi crimes throughout Poland, the absence from these records of Mr. Demjanjuk's name, or any other data regarding him, is very strong evidence indeed that Mr. Demjanjuk, as he has consistently maintained, was never a collaborator at any Nazi camp in Poland (Treblinka, Sobibor, Trawniki, etc.) or otherwise.  As Mr. Ryan said with respect to Mr. Walus, if Mr. Demjanjuk "had been involved in the SS or the Gestapo [or any other Nazi activities] there certainly would have been some mention of him."

Why was such evidence sufficient, in Mr. Ryan's opinion, to exonerate Mr. Walus and yet, as a matter of basic fairness, was not even revealed to the defense team in the Demjanjuk denaturalization case?  Indeed (regardless of any technical and attenuated legal arguments that the Justice Department might have advanced for withholding the document), why did the department go so far as to refuse to produce the document when the defense asked for it under the Freedom of Information Act?

Moreover, when it finally (in 1986) did release a portion of the 1979 letter of the Polish Commission, in ostensible response to its obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, the Justice Department blocked out the paragraph that specifically exonerated Demjanjuk.  (Only the fortuitous receipt of a complete copy of the letter from counsel for another defendant revealed the critically exculpatory Demjanjuk evidence.)