Court rejects Nazi guard Demjanjuk's appeal

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An appeals court on Wednesday ruled against accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, a decision that could bring the retired Ohio auto worker only one step away from deportation to his native Ukraine.

The Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that a U.S. immigration judge had the authority to order the 87-year-old Demjanjuk deported, marking the latest turn in a 30-year legal battle.

His lawyers had said before Wednesday's ruling that they would pursue their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lost in the appeals court.

Demjanjuk was once wrongly convicted of being the sadistic Nazi death camp guard "Ivan the Terrible" and sentenced to death in Israel. The Israeli Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, saying another man was probably "Ivan," a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp where 870,000 people died.

But he was stripped of his U.S. citizenship again in 2002, with a judge ruling that he had worked as a guard at other death camps.

The issue before the appeals court was whether former Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy had the authority to rule on his deportation.

During oral arguments last November Demjanjuk's lawyer, John Broadley, told the appeals panel that Creppy was not authorized to judge the case because he had held an administrative, not adjudicative, position on the immigration review board.

But in Wednesday's ruling a three-judge panel of the appeals court held that Creppy "clearly meets the statutory definition of 'immigration judge.'"