U.S. Reopens Nazi Camp Guard Extradition Case

CINCINNATI —  A federal appeals court on Friday reopened the case of John Demjanjuk, saying the U.S. government may have erred in ordering him extradited to Israel to face charges that he was a Nazi death camp guard.

The 72-year-old former auto worker, identified by several survivors of the Treblinka death camp as a notorious guard nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible,” has been sentenced to hang in Israel.

Chief Judge Gilbert Merritt of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said the case may be one of mistaken identity. He ordered the Justice Department to file a brief by July 25 with any knowledge it has showing that Demjanjuk, a former Cleveland resident born in the Ukraine, is not “Ivan.”

He gave lawyers for Demjanjuk until the same date to file any information they have showing that “Ivan” was really a man named Ivan Marchenko.

“Our previous study of the record and numerous press reports and articles in the United States indicate that the extradition warrant . . . may have been improvidently issued because it was based on erroneous information,” the court said in its ruling.

Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States in 1986. He was sentenced to death by hanging in Israel in 1988 after five survivors of the Treblinka death camp identified him during his trial as “Ivan the Terrible.”

Lawyers for Demjanjuk are now before Israel’s Supreme Court appealing his conviction on the basis of newly uncovered sworn statements made decades ago by 37 Treblinka guards. Demjanjuk’s lawyers say the statements prove that Marchenko and not Demjanjuk operated the gas chambers at Treblinka.

An estimated 870,000 Jews were gassed at Treblinka.

In Friday’s order, Merritt also ordered both sides to file briefs by Aug. 1 on whether the case should be sent back to a lower court for reconsideration of the extradition order.

The Supreme Court in Israel plans to hear final arguments next week before ruling on Demjanjuk’s appeal.