Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9308010040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JERUSALEM LENGTH: Short
Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker from suburban Cleveland, was acquitted by Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday as the Nazi mass murderer "Ivan the Terrible." He has sought temporary asylum in Ukraine while he tries to get U.S. permission to return to Ohio.
Demjanjuk will leave on a direct flight to Kiev, Ukraine, departing at 2:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EST), said Rafi Levy, a spokesman for the police ministry.
The plan would change only if the deportation order isn't revised by the high court or the attorney general, he said.
Six Holocaust survivors have petitioned the High Court of Justice to prevent Demjanjuk's deportation so he can stand trial for being a Nazi death camp guard.
Although the Supreme Court overturned Demjanjuk's 1988 conviction and death sentence as "Ivan," the sadistic gas chamber operator at the Treblinka death camp, the judges said there was strong evidence he served in a Nazi unit whose mission was to kill Jews.
The court did not convict him on those charges because they were not included in the original indictment and Demjanjuk did not have a chance to defend himself.
Demjanjuk, 73, has argued he was a victim of mistaken identity. He was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1981 for lying about his alleged Nazi past. U.S. officials said Demjanjuk would not be readmitted now, but did not rule out a return later.
by CNB