Posted on 11/13/2008 7:54:02 AM PST by mnehring
The first trial he was convicted on was based on eye-witness evidence, and overturned because of one mystery eye-witness that came up after the fact out of nowhere. The new evidence is period documentation. That is pretty damning and hard to fight..
I guess that’s where the problem is....he’s a very old man, who had never answered for his crimes when his life actually meant something to him. Now...executing him doesn’t gain anything as far as punishment goes he’s already got one foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave.
What do you mean by period documentation? It all still comes down to an eyewitness seeing him there and after 60 (or even 40) years, that’s going to be tough.
Germany does not have a death penalty.
As I recall, a ID card came to light showing that he was never at the Camp where “Ivan” engaged in those atrocities.
Read a book about this a few years ago. I believe Demjanuk was not the “Ivan the Terrible” he was accused of being, but there is ample evidence that he was a guard at another camp (Sobibor). So what’s he going to say, I wasn’t this infamous guard that was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, because I was really a guard at another camp where merely thousands were killed.
Israel does, that is where he was first convicted.
The period documentation clearly proves that Ivan the Terrible was a mass murderer, but it doesn't prove that this guy is Ivan the Terrible.
Israel concluded he wasn't. I just wonder what the new information is that says otherwise.
That’s what other articles on this say, there are transport lists that tie him with the charges. The Nazis where very OCD with documentation- it has been the convicting evidence in many cases.
I hope Pat doesn’t get tear stains all over his copy of Mein Kampf.
That is what I understood to have happened, “but” even the evidence of working at the “other” camp was shoddy at best, and with the KGB forging the original ID documents, it would be difficult to place credibility on some “new” “new” evidence.
If the KGB forged stuff, why wouldn’t the East Germans forge things as well?
Can’t they even decide which camp he was at?
..actually, Israel convicted him..but after ten years of fighting the conviction, they said there spoliation of evidence and then the mystery eye-witness came forward who claimed he remembers seeing some ID with the name Marchenko instead of Demjanjuk. What the supreme court didn’t hear at the time was that Demjanjuk’s mother’s name was Marchenko and he even used that name on his US entry visa.
The Israeli supreme court didn’t find him not guilty, they overturned the ruling and made a statement “The matter is closed-but not complete, the complete truth is not the prerogative of the human judge.” They left open the legal door to keep going and not clear Demjanjuk.
One of the Israeli prosecutors had this same thought after his original conviction and death sentence were overturned. As he put it, "OK, so he's Ivan the Not Quite So Terrible."
The so called evidence that caused his first conviction to be overturned was a mystery witness who claimed they saw the name Marchenko instead of Demjanjuk on a piece of ID. The Israeli Supreme Court didn’t hear when they reviewed the case that Demjanjuk had used the name Marchenko on his US entry visa way back in the 50s and Marchenko was his mother’s name, so there was even a connection to that name, but the connection doesn’t clear him.
Not sure what you mean, he was at both Sobibor and Treblinka.
Ridiculous. He’s, what? 90 years old.
Time to move on.
And that “mystery” witness was so convincing that no less then 5 eyewitnesses were disregarded, that is no small thing.
I can recall some of those witnesses testifying in the original trial, they were convinced..and apparently, they were dead wrong.
That is one of the perils of eyewitness testimony that is 60 years old, if the guy is guilty he should face Justice, but if innocent, what then?
These are very serious crimes for which the person responsible should die, but I would hope that the state (whichever state that happens to be) establishes concrete proof, beyond doubt, that this is the guy who did these things.
"Probably" isn't enough.
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