‘Ivan Terrible’ Appeals Conviction : Demjanjuk’s War Crimes Trial Judges Described as Biased

The trial judges who convicted retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk of killing Jews at a World War II death camp were biased, his attorney said today in court arguments appealing the war crimes conviction.

In April, 1988, a three-judge panel found that Demjanjuk was a brutal guard known as “Ivan the terrible,” who operated gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp in Poland from 1942 to 1943. More than 850,000 Jews died there.

Demjanjuk, 70, of Cleveland, was sentenced to death under a 1950 Israeli law allowing prosecution of Nazis and their collaborators.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk has maintained he is a victim of mistaken identity and that he was incarcerated in German POW camps during the period in question.

Speaking before a five-justice Supreme Court panel, Demjanjuk’s Israeli attorney, Yoram Sheftel, said he disputed the conviction on 10 points. The most significant, Sheftel said, was “the bias of the court.”

“It should lead to the clear conclusion that the conviction should be canceled and especially in a case where the sentence is capital punishment,” he said.

Sheftel argued at length about what he said was a hostile atmosphere created by news reports and the judges’ treatment of the defense during the 17-month trial.

He claimed the trial judges--Dov Levine, Dalia Dorner and Shmuel Tal--subscribed to a clipping service that twice daily delivered reports from newspapers. He also asserted the judges briefed reporters on occasion.

He said biased reporting “clearly had a great deal of influence on the court. Sometimes I thought I wasn’t sitting in a court but at Bloomfield,” a football stadium near Tel Aviv, Sheftel said.

He said there were frequent shouts and interruptions from the audience at the trial, which was held in a converted movie theater.

“Not only was an appearance of justice lacking but justice in fact was not done,” said Sheftel.

Throughout today’s proceedings, Demjanjuk, wearing a dark brown prison uniform, listened impassively from a witness stand, guarded by two policemen. He muttered “good morning” in Hebrew as he entered the courtroom wearing handcuffs and then embraced his son, John Jr.

Demjanjuk’s wife, Vera, also was present and refused to speak to reporters.