Haaretz
Kislev 28, 5766
CLEVELAND - A United States
immigration judge Wednesday ordered John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker
accused of being a Nazi concentration camp guard, deported to his native
Ukraine.
Demjanjuk, 85, has been fighting for nearly 30 years to
stay in the U.S. During the long legal battle, he was suspected for a time
of being the notoriously brutal guard known as Ivan the Terrible and was
nearly executed in Israel.
Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael
Creppy ruled that there was no evidence to substantiate Demjanjuk's claim
that he would be tortured if deported to his homeland.
Demjanjuk
can appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals within 30
days.
"After 30 years, it appears that some measure of justice
has finally been achieved," said Elan Steinberg, executive
director emeritus of the New York-based World Jewish
Congress.
"And I say 'some measure of justice' because, after all,
we're talking about somebody who was found to have been a Nazi
persecutor," Steinberg said in a telephone interview.
"All that is
happening to him, really, is that he's been stripped of his citizenship
and is being deported to Ukraine.
Demjanjuk lost his U.S.
citizenship after a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II
prove he was a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor
camps.
His attorney had argued at a hearing last month that sending
Demjanjuk back to Ukraine would be like throwing him "into a shark
tank."
The United States first tried to deport Demjanjuk in 1977,
accusing him of being Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka concentration
camp in Poland.
Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel, convicted and
sentenced to hang, but the Israeli Supreme Court found that someone else
apparently was Ivan.
Demjanjuk returned to the United States and
his U.S. citizenship was restored before being lifted again.
The
current case is based on evidence uncovered by the Justice Department
alleging he was a different guard. Demjanjuk has denied the
allegations.
"Whether he was Ivan the Terrible or some other
terrible
person, is really irrelevant," said the World Jewish
Congress' Steinberg. "The facts are clear and, at last, we have achieved
some justice," he added.