Demjanjuk arrives in Germany
Photo: AP
Demjanjuk's lawyer: Jailing him 'inhuman'
Suspected Nazi guard 'suffering huge psychological torment' in Munich prison, claims attorney
Jailing an 89-year-old man deported from the United States on suspicion of helping to herd thousands of Jews into Nazi gas chambers is "inhuman", the former death camp guard's lawyer said on Sunday.
The imprisonment of John Demjanjuk, wanted by prosecutors in Munich for assisting in the murder of more than 29 000 Jews, "goes against our constitution and against human dignity", Ulrich Busch said in an interview to appear in Monday's edition of the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
The Demjanjuk Saga
Thomas Blatt, whose family was murdered at Sorbibor, tells of his experiences in the Nazi camp
Demjanjuk, behind bars in the Stadelheim prison in Munich, is suffering "huge psychological torment", said Busch, who visited his client for five hours on Saturday.
Prison doctors at Stadelheim on Wednesday declared the Ukrainian-born octogenarian fit to remain in jail as he awaits formal charges.
But doctors must still determine whether Demjanjuk is fit to undergo the stress of a trial, a process prosecutors said could take be lengthy.
Demjanjuk is suspect number three in the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's latest report on wanted Nazi war criminals, behind two others who are thought to be dead.
Demjanjuk has been suspected of being "Ivan the Terrible", a particularly brutal death camp guard who specialized in hacking at naked prisoners with a sword. He spent five years on death row in Israel before being acquitted in 1993 when the verdict against him was overturned.
Busch said his client was currently in a stable condition "but these proceedings are wearing him down psychologically because he finds himself again in jail after 30 years of criminal prosecution".
Demjanjuk denies the prosecution's charge that he was at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.
But courts in both Israel and the United States have previously stated he was a guard at Sobibor, accusations he had never challenged before.
Prosecutors also have an SS identity card with a photograph of a young man said to be Demjanjuk and written transcripts of witness testimony placing him at the camp.
