Judge to Probe U.S. Extradition of Demjanjuk

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati on Monday appointed a federal district judge from Tennessee as a special master to investigate whether the Justice Department engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in its Nazi war crimes case against John Demjanjuk.

The three-judge appeals panel dismissed the Justice Department’s contention that the court has no jurisdiction to reconsider whether Demjanjuk should have been extradited to Israel on charges that he was the notorious Nazi concentration camp guard called “Ivan the Terrible.” If the judges determine that prosecutors misled them, they said they have “inherent power” to reverse their 1985 decision allowing Demjanjuk’s extradition.

After the same three appeals court judges refused to block Demjanjuk’s extradition, he was convicted in Israel and sentenced to death, principally for the crimes of “Ivan the Terrible.” The guilty verdict was based mainly upon an SS identification card and the testimony of half a dozen survivors of the Treblinka death camp, who identified Demjanjuk as the sadistic operator of the gas chambers where more than 850,000 Jews died. The Israeli Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on Demjanjuk’s appeal.

Demjanjuk’s family contends the 72-year-old retired auto worker would never have been extradited if the Justice Department had shared evidence it collected pointing to a different man, Ivan Marchenko, as “Ivan the Terrible.”

The appeals court judges appointed Thomas A. Wiseman, a federal district judge in Nashville, to serve as special master, instructing him to question four of Demjanjuk’s prosecutors under oath and to prepare a report.