After much huffing and puffing, the supposed war criminal, John Demjanjuk, has been found guilty of complicity in crimes committed at the Sobibor concentration camp. This decision, of a court in Germany, relied entirely on rather vague circumstantial evidence; there are no actual witnesses and identification rested on the authenticity of an ID card, said to have been his, but the authenticity of which has been questioned by many authorities including the FBI.
More than 20 years ago, Demjanjuk was tried in Israel for other war crimes, on that occasion being accused of a range of crimes while working as a guard at Treblinka concentration camp; at that time there were a few witnesses who all identified him, without doubt, as a guard known as 'Ivan the Terrible'. He was found guilty and sentenced to death but further evidence subsequently emerged that totally exonerated him and he was released. The witnesses had all been wrong and other evidence was discredited to such an extent that even the arch-NAZI hunters of Israel had to accept that he was innocent.
This man is now 91 and the crimes he has been tried for were committed more than 65 years ago. There are no living witnesses and other evidence is vague; how can anyone have come up with a guilty verdict ? This is, without doubt, a case in which the judges have made a 'political' decision rather than one based on the evidence presented in court and even they seem to have realised this in that, although sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, Demjanjuk was then immediately released pending appeal.
Demjanjuk may, indeed, be guilty of the many crimes with which he has been accused but there is insufficient evidence for any court to come to a guilty verdict. The German judges who've done so this week should be ashamed of themselves.
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