Accused Nazi guard Demjanjuk loses court appeal

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk on Monday lost a Supreme Court appeal that sought to block his deportation to his native Ukraine.

Without comment, the high court refused to hear an appeal by the 88-year-old retired Ohio auto worker that argued the nation's chief immigration judge lacked the authority to order his deportation.

The rejection of the appeal marked the latest development in a battle between Demjanjuk and the U.S. Justice Department that began in 1977.

The deportation order, issued in 2005, says that Demjanjuk can be sent to Germany or Poland, as an alternative, if Ukraine refuses to accept him.

It appears that no country is willing to take Demjanjuk, either by granting him a visa or to prosecute him for war crimes, according to a former prosecutor in the case.

"I haven't heard any indication that any country ... is willing to accept a war criminal of John Demjanjuk's notoriety," Jonathan Drimmer, who is now in private practice, said in a telephone interview.

"He will remain free, pending whatever removal occurs," Drimmer said. "At this point, any country can accept him."

'IVAN THE TERRIBLE'

Demjanjuk was once convicted of being the sadistic guard "Ivan the Terrible" and sentenced to death in Israel. But the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction when new evidence showed another man was probably "Ivan" at the Treblinka camp in Poland where 870,000 people died.

Demjanjuk was twice stripped of his U.S. citizenship, the second time in 2002, when a federal judge ruled he had been a guard at three other Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany.

Demjanjuk has argued that Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy did not have the authority to order his deportation. Creppy can only do administrative duties, Demjanjuk's lawyers said.

But a Board of Immigration Appeals and a U.S. appeals court based in Cincinnati rejected his arguments, prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Demjanjuk's lawyers have said he could be prosecuted and face harsh prison conditions or even torture if he is sent back to Ukraine. But Creppy and then the Board of Immigration Appeals said there was no evidence to support those claims.

Demjanjuk was first stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1981 and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988 on eyewitness testimony from Holocaust survivors that he was Ivan of the Treblinka camp.

The Israeli Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 1993 and freed him after newly released records from the former Soviet Union showed Ivan Marchenko was probably the Treblinka guard.