Israel to Put Demjanjuk on Trial Jan. 19
A court Monday set a Jan. 19 trial date for retired U.S. auto worker John Demjanjuk on charges of sending thousands of people to their deaths as a guard in a World War II Nazi death camp.
The president of the Jerusalem court, Justice Dov Levin, rejected a request by Demjanjuk’s lawyer, Mark O’Connor, for a three-month delay between the reading of the charges in court and the opening of testimony.
Levin, after talks with O’Connor, the prosecution and other judges, said the trial will start Jan. 19.
In September, Demjanjuk, 66, was ordered to stand trial on charges of torturing and killing several hundred thousand Jews and others in World War II as the Nazi prison camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.”
The location for the trial has not been decided.
Demjanjuk, a retired Cleveland auto worker stripped of his U.S. citizenship and extradited to Israel on Feb. 28, claims that he was not “Ivan” and did not work at the Treblinka death camp in Poland.
The four-count, 24-page indictment charges the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk with war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against persecuted people during World War II.
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