Two Spanish Holocaust survivors have testified about their ordeals in Nazi concentration camps as a judge began gathering evidence in a lawsuit urging the extradition of four former death camp guards for genocide. Judge Ismael Moreno of the National Court heard from Ramiro Santisteban and Jesus Tello, who were both interns at the Mauthausen camp, for about four hours, according to a court official and the human rights group that filed the lawsuit. Last July, Moreno agreed to consider the complaint from the Brussels-based group Equipo Nizkor which argues that the four suspects should be extradited from the United States on charges of genocide under the so-called principle of universal justice.
The doctrine allows particularly heinous offenses – such as crimes against humanity, terrorism and torture – to be prosecuted in Spain even if they are alleged to have been committed elsewhere. Spain has used it to go after former Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet in 1998 and Osama bin Laden in 2003, although extraditions and convictions have been extremely rare. The complaint identifies the four suspects as John Demjanjuk, Anton Tittjung, Josias Kumpf and Johann Leprich, and says they worked as camp guards at Flossenbürg and Sachsenhausen, in Germany, or Mauthausen in Nazi-occupied Austria.
Demjanjuk is also being sought by Germany, and US officials currently are preparing his extradition there to stand trial in a Munich court. Kumpf was recently deported by the United States to Austria, but no trial is planned there. Moreno now has to decide whether to file charges against Demjanjuk and the other three and seek their extradition. It is not clear how long he will take to take such a decision.
