Demjanjuk Says He Wants to Testify, ‘but Not Today’

Retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk said today he is eager to testify in his defense in his Nazi war crimes trial, but not until he gets a better interpreter to translate the proceedings from Hebrew to Ukrainian.

Presiding Judge Dov Levine granted the request and agreed to a defense motion to recess the trial until July 27, when Demjanjuk is scheduled to be the first defense witness.

“Shalom to the court,” said Demjanjuk, using the traditional Hebrew greeting, which means “Peace.”

“I want to have my say, but not today,” Demjanjuk said in his native Ukrainian when asked by Levine if he intended to testify. “I want to speak out and to prove the whole truth,” he said.

The defense opened its arguments today, maintaining the charges should be dropped because of contradictions in the prosecution’s case.

Israeli defense attorney Yoram Sheftel, who presented the motion to drop the charges, said the prosecution failed to prove Demjanjuk was “Ivan the Terrible,” a guard who operated the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. About 800,000 Jews were killed at the camp in 1942 and 1943.

Demjanjuk, 67, has said he is a victim of mistaken identity and was never at Treblinka.

“I hope to show that the identifying evidence of the prosecution . . . amounts to zero,” Sheftel told the three-judge panel.

He said the prosecution’s case was based on circumstantial evidence and marred by faulty identification procedures.

Since the trial began Feb. 16, the prosecution has called to the stand five Treblinka survivors who identified Demjanjuk as “Ivan.”