Posted on 05/12/2011 11:06:27 AM PDT by EBH
Demjanjuk today was sentenced to five years in prison. He was found guilty of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder during the time he was ruled to have been a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
There is no evidence Demjanjuk committed a specific crime. Instead he is charged with 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for the number of people who died in the time span he was allegedly a Sobibor camp guard on the theory that if he was there, he was a participant — the first time such a legal argument has been made in German courts.
"If the prosecution is successful, and if there is a verdict for accessory to murder because one was a guard in a camp where many people were killed, it could be a beginning of new last wave of many [such] proceedings," said Cornelius Nestler,
The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations also has said the card is genuine, but documents unearthed by the AP and brought to light in a story last month indicate that the FBI had doubts similar to those aired by Demjanjuk's defense about the evidence — though the material was never turned over to them.
Busch has previously said that with the time spent in custody in Israel, Germany and the U.S. adding up to more than 10 years — more than two-thirds of the maximum sentence — he should be immediately set free, especially in view of his age.
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
I have know idea what the truth is, but reading through the entire article I am not sure there is a legal conviction here either.
If he is convicted for being a guard...shouldn't then all the guards still living be convicted?
For the ping list?
This whole trial was a sham.
George Soros also worked for the Nazi’s... Where is his trial?
How ironic would that be?
By using "guilt-by-association" as the basis for convicting the guy, Germany as a society would be employing (and setting precedent for) a technique that the Nazis undoubtedly would have (did?) used themselves.
I know this has been going on a long time, but I am not entirely sympathetic to this guy.
HOWEVER, the concept of guilt by association is one helluva slippery slope.
I hope it never shows its face in this country.
The krauts are going a little overboard here.
Consider that he couldn’t return to the Soviet Union, because he was already marked for death there for getting captured by the Nazis. If you were a Ukrainian POW, your only choices were to “volunteer” for guard duty, or get shot.
There is no evidence he killed even one person as a guard, or signed any orders authorizing any killings.
And why now does Germany care so much for going after war criminals, and a non-German at that? Where were they when they were trying to find Eichmann and Mengele?
“George Soros also worked for the Nazi’s... Where is his trial?”
Good point.
Mr. Soros is a multi-billionaire.
I am not sure what I think, but it is a bit cautious. My FIL was autoworker, my in-laws were all German immigrants...not one except for my husband was born here. There is a very active German Culture here in Cleveland. Many of them are very staunch Americans, while celebrating their German cultural roots. My viewpoint is understandably biased in this matter.
He was Russian, then German, then American...and now
Demjanjuk, who is now stateless, has nowhere to go.
The war ended 66 years ago and Soros is 81. How old was he when he worked for the Nazis?
.
He was extradited to Israel on the charge that he was a specific guard, "Ivan the Terrible." The Israeli Supreme Court found that there was overwhelming evidence that he had been a concentration camp guard, but not the specific one he had been charged with being. Because Israel could only prosecute him for the specific charge he had been extradited on, they could not convict him and had to send him back to the U.S.
This was a separate trial in Germany on different charges.
“I hope it never shows its (guilt by association) face in this country.”
Too late. Demjanjuk was deported from the US on the basis if accusations that would not stand the light of day were the topic bank robbery or fraud. But if you accuse someone of being a death camp guard it’s like accusing someone of witchcraft - they’re guilty if they admit it and guilty if they don’t.
Looks like a witch hunt from where I’m sitting.
In interviews I have seen him give, he said he enjoyed what he was doing for the Nazi's. He enjoyed stealing the property of the Jews, and had no problem in turning them in. It is where he learned to be cruel and to have no feelings about it, he hates his own Jewishness.
Yes, why isn't he on trial?
Jewish life is still cheap in Germany.
Hardly. Because of his age during the war, I couldn't quite picture him committing war crimes. Also I knew that he was Jewish, at least by birth, so I wondered how he got involved with the Nazis. Why did he turn against his fellow Jews and cozy up to the enemy? Money?
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