VICTIM OF HATE AND INJUSTICE

 

 

US denies appeal
in witch-hunt deportation case

 

 

Court Denies Alleged Nazi Guard's Appeal
Associated Press Thursday, 31 January 2008

By TERRY KINNEY

CINCINNATI — A former autoworker from Cleveland who is
accused of being a Nazi death camp guard lost another battle
Wednesday in his 30-year fight to maintain his US citizenship
and residence.

JOHN DEMJANJUK: Victim of government
persecution and unending Talmudic hate.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected John Demjanjuk's
challenge to a final deportation order of the nation's chief
immigration judge. The order would send Demjanjuk to Germany,
Poland or his native Ukraine.

The government initially claimed Demjanjuk was the notoriously
sadistic guard at the Treblinka camp known as "Ivan the Terrible."
Officials later concluded that he was not, but a judge ruled in
2002 that documents from World War II prove Demjanjuk was a
Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps.

Demjanjuk's attorney, John Broadley, said he had no comment
on the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court
of Appeal and would not be able to respond until he reviews it.
He would not speculate on what legal options remain.

Justice Department attorney Eli Rosenbaum did not immediately
respond to an e-mail request for comment.

Demjanjuk, who has steadfastly denied that he ever helped the
Nazis, was told of the panel's decision, said Ed Nishnic, his former
son-in-law.

Victim in poor health

"He's been made aware if it," said Nishnic, who is divorced from
Demjanjuk's daughter but remains involved in his defense and acts
as a family spokesman. "He's basically used to decisions that don't
go in our favor, and he's pretty much oblivious to the details.
We'd like him to have peace in his life as much as possible."

Demjanjuk, 87, is generally in poor health, Nishnic said. Demjanjuk
lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He contends that he
served in the Soviet Army, was captured by Germany in 1942 and
became a prisoner of war.

In his latest attempt to avoid deportation for Demjanjuk, Broadley
argued that Michael J. Creppy, the chief immigration judge who
made the 2005 deportation order, was purely an administrative
official and not entitled to act as an immigration judge.

The appeals court panel rejected that argument and refused to
review Creppy's ruling, which was upheld by the Board of
Immigration Appeals in 2006.

"Demjanjuk essentially asks this court to ignore the plain meaning
of the words 'Immigration Judge' because Creppy's title also
included the word 'Chief,'" the court said. "The word 'Chief' does
not somehow alter the fundamental meaning of the words
'Immigration Judge' to make this position entirely managerial,
as Demjanjuk claims it to be."

False charges first brought in 1977

The decision is the latest in a long legal fight. The Justice
Department first brought charges in 1977 seeking to revoke
Demjanjuk's citizenship and to deport him for falsifying information
on his applications when entering the US in 1952 and to become
a citizen in 1958.

His US citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and
revoked again in 2002. He was extradited to Israel in 1986 and was
under a death sentence, until Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1993
that he was not the same man as Ivan.

The current deportation case is based on evidence uncovered by
the Justice Department that Demjanjuk was a different guard.
That evidence led courts to again strip Demjanjuk of his citizenship
on the basis of the original falsified information.

Broadley had argued in briefs filed in July 2007 that Demjanjuk likely
would be tortured in Ukraine if sent back there because the US
government never sufficiently disavowed its previous claim that
Demjanjuk was Ivan. The government contends there is no basis
for the argument that Demjanjuk would be tortured.