John Demjanjuk faces new charges in Germany

18 July 2011

The convicted former death camp guard John Demjanjuk, sentenced by a Munich court to five years in prison for aiding the murder of at least 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, now faces a new probe, a German newspaper reports. Prosecutors in Bavaria opened a new investigation after accusations relating to Demjanjuk’s alleged activities at a different concentration camp, Flossenbürg, the paper ‘Tagesspiegel’ reported.

The article said that two complainants were seeking to hold Demjanjuk and another former camp guard responsible for the deaths of 4,974 people at Flossenbürg between October 1943 and December 1944. About 100,000 people were held at Flossenbürg, a Nazi camp in Bavaria near the Czech border, and nearby satellite camps, and more than 73,000 of them died, according to official figures.

Demjanjuk, 91, was sentenced in May to a five-year prison term. He had been in prison before and during his 18-month-long trial. Citing his age the trial judge released him until the end of the appeals process, and the Bavarian government placed him in a retirement home. Demjanjuk has denied all charges against him and filed an appeal. The prosecution, which had asked for a six-year prison sentence, has also appealed the court's decision.

In 2009, Demjanjuk was deported by US authorities to Germany and deprived of his US citizenship for lying about his past to immigration officials.