By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe

MUNICH, Germany – A German court on Thursday convicted and sentenced 91-year old autoworker John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for helping the Nazis murder more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor concentration camp during World War II. He was released pending appeal.

Demjanjuk, who is in poor health, showed no emotion when the verdict was announced, said Al Jazeera correspondent Tim Friend. “John Demjanjuk’s health has been questionable during this entire trial. He has spent much of it on a stretcher in court,” Friend said.

Starting in November 2009, the trial lasted eighteen months. Proceedings were limited to two sessions of ninety minutes a day because of Demjanjuk’s health problems, including an incurable bone-marrow disease.

“The court is convinced that the defendant [ . . . ] served as a guard at Sobibor from 27 March 1943 to mid-Septermber 1943,” and “took part in the murder of at least 28,000 people,” said presiding judge Ralph Alt, who noted that Demjanjuk voluntarily took part in the Nazis’ “machinery of destruction.” Approximately 250,000 people died at Sobibor.

Demjanjuk denied the claims against him. His lawyers said they will appeal the conviction.

Ukranian-born Demjanjuk, a former U.S. citizen, was a soldier in the Red Army in 1942 when he was captured by the Germans and recruited to be an SS guard at the death camp. He was deported to Germany in 2009, where he was accused of assisting the Nazis herd Jews to the gas chambers at the camp in Poland.

The prosecution used various documents to prove its case, including an SS identity card indicating Demjanjuk’s association with Sobibor, staff lists, and a memo dated January 1943 that showed Demjanjuk was at Sobibor. The defense argued that most of the documents were forged, a claim Alt said was unlikely.

Demjanjuk’s association with Sobibor during the relevant time period, rather than specific evidence linking him to the murders, was enough to show that he participated in the mass killings, the prosecution argued.

The defense argued that though Demjanjuk was recruited as a camp guard, he was not placed at Sobibor. Demjanjuk said he remained a prisoner of war until 1945, then later moved to the United States, where he started a family and lived in Cleveland.

Demjanjuk’s family said after the verdict that Demjanjuk should not spend any more days in prison. An email signed by Demjanjuk’s son John Demjanjuk Jr., reported by the New York Times, said: “There remains not a scintilla of evidence he ever hurt a single person anywhere. While some may take satisfaction from this event, this verdict is no more definitive today than the wrongful Israeli conviction and death sentence was previously.” Demjanjuk was found guilty in the 1980s in an Israeli court for serving as a guard in another camp, Treblinka. After serving close to eight years in an Israeli prison, five of which were spent on death row, the court overturned the verdict on the grounds of wrongful identification.

However, others, including families of World War II victims, expressed relief at the verdict. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that the court’s decision “sends a very strong message that even years after the crimes of the Holocaust, perpetrators can be held to account for their misdeeds.”

Rudolf Salmon Cortissos, whose mother was killed in the gas chambers at Sobibor told the Associated Press, “It’s very emotional – it doesn’t happen every day.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – ‘Nazi guard’ found guilty of murder – 12 May 2011

BBC – John Demjanjuk guilty of Nazi death camp murders – 12 May 2011

Bloomberg – Demjanjuk Convicted of Helping Nazis to Murder Jews During the Holocaust – 12 May 2011

New York Times – Demjanjuk Convicted for Role in Nazi Death Camp – 12 May 2011

Radio Free Europe – Demjanjuk Found Guilty Of Nazi Murders, Released On Grounds Of Age – 12 May 2011

By Christina Berger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia — A former Russian court official said in an interview on Friday that the judge in charge of last year’s high profile trial of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky openly admitted the verdict would be dictated to him by others. This was the second official associated with the case to speak out about pressure put on the judge during the trial.

Igor Kravchenko, who was an administrator at the Moscow court until he was let go for allowing Khodorkovsky’s lawyers to bring a jar of crude oil into the courtroom as part of testimony, was interviewed by a Russian independent newspaper. In the interview, published on Friday, Kravchenko claims that Judge Viktor Danilkin admitted that he was not the one really in charge of Khodorkovsky’s fate. Kravchenko said in the interview, “[a]bout the process this is what [Judge Danilkin] said: ‘In principle, I don’t decide this. Whatever they say, that’s what will be.”

Judge Danilkin has said this is not true, and a Moscow courts spokeswoman has reassured Russian news media that Judge Danilkin wrote the verdict himself and urged reporters not to “suck news out of your finger, but analyze the process on the basis of facts and data which were presented in the trial.”

But Kravchenko is not the first Russian court official to make such claims. Natalya Vasilyeva, a former assistant to Judge Danilkin and court spokeswoman, gave an interview in February 2010 claiming that Judge Danilkin was forced to hand out a guilty verdict. Vasilyeva said in a TV interview, “Danilkin began to write the verdict. I suspect that what was in that verdict did not suit his higher ups, and therefore he received another verdict, which he had to read.” Kravchenko has said that what Vasilyeva said is true and only what most people involved the case already knew.

Khodorkovsky was already serving an eight year sentence on similar charges when the trial with Judge Danilkin took place. Many in the international community viewed the original sentence for tax fraud, handed down in 2005, as punishment for challenging then-President Vladimir Putin, and for his intent to sell energy assets to US companies. It was in light of his approaching release that government officials charged Khodorkovsky with embezzlement last year.

Khodorkovsky was held for months last year in pre-trial detention, despite legislation recently passed and aimed at keeping people accused of economic crimes free until trial. Russia’s Supreme Court actually ruled on appeal that the pre-trial detention was illegal, but it has no practical effect since Khodorkovsky is already serving the second sentence handed down by Judge Danilkin.

Khodorkovsky’s lawyer suggested the ruling was a superficial way to demonstrate reforms in Russia are working. “The situation is so crazy and so lacking in practical consequences that it was possible [for the court] to completely painlessly demonstrate that sometimes in Russia, even in this case, there are reasonable rulings,” he said.

As a result of the second trial, Khodorkovsky will be in prison until 2017, Judge Danilkin having sentenced him to six years for multibillion-dollar theft and money-laundering. During the trial Judge Danilkin was often called to Moscow City Court for meetings and demands of senior officials, according to Kravchenko. He also claimed that when senior officials were pleased with the judge, their approval was shown through bonuses for Danilkin and his employees, and when the senior officials weren’t happy with the judge, then his budget shrank.

Fore more information, please see:

MOSCOW TIMES — 2nd Court Official Sees Yukos Pressure — 18 April 2011

AP — Ex-Khodorkovsky court official criticizes judge — 15 April 2011

NY TIMES — Bosses Pressed Russian Judge, Official Says — 15 April 2011

By Christina Berger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France–A controversial ban on full-face veils recently took effect in France. The law banning the veils in public was passed last fall amidst criticism that it violates freedom of expression and freedom of religion values, as well as takes away women’s right choose for themselves. The law imposes a fine of 150 euros for women violating the law, and fine of 30,000 errors for any men who force their wives to wear a full-face veil.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have argued that France’s burqa ban violates European human rights law. John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, responded when the ban was first passed by the French government, “[a] complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs.”

Police in France imposed the fine on the first day the law took effect. Two women wearing the full-face veil were arrested in Paris for an unauthorized protest of the new law. In a unique approach, Rachid Nekkaz, an activist with the group Hands Off My Constitution, wore a mask while carrying a check for the 150-euro fine on the day the law went into effect lat week. According to CCN, Nekkaz’s group auctioned one of his homes to raise the money needed to pay the fines of any woman arrested for wearing the forbidden veils.

Some critics of the law have complained that in addition to possible human rights violations, the full-face veil ban affects only a tiny population. An estimated 2,000 or less women wear the full-face veils in a country with a Muslim population of 3.5 million. Jonathan Laurence, an associate professor of political science at Boston College and the author of an upcoming book, “The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims” says that the law is “an unnecessary confrontation…[t]his is not an epidemic.”

The Open Society Foundations recently published a report, Unveiling the Truth: Why 32 Women Wear the Full-Face Veil in France, which is aimed at dispelling some of the myths and misrepresentations found in the debate over the veil ban in France. The report examines the the decision of the 32 women who choose to wear the veil, their experiences in public, and how they feel about the legislation. The report details the verbal and even physical abuse they’ve been subjected to as a result of the debate surrounding the veil banning, as well as being accused of “shaming” the entire Muslim community and “dirtying the religion.”

The French Constitutional Council has stated that the law does not prevent the free exercise of religion and thus conforms to the constitution. The ban enjoys the support of the majority of the French people. A Washington think-tank conducted a survey and found the ban had drawn the widest support in France where 82% of people polled approved the ban, versus for example the US where 2/3 of Americans polled opposed a ban.

When the ban was first passed, Amnesty International spoke out about letting majority public opinion restrict human rights. “As a general rule, the rights to freedom of religion and expression entail that all people should be free to choose what – and what not – to wear. These rights cannot be restricted simply because some – even a majority – find a form of dress objectionable or offensive.”

For more information, please see:

GUARDIAN — France’s false ‘battle of the veil’ — 18 April 2011

HUFFINGTON POST — French Burqa Ban Sets a Dangerous Precedent — 14 April 2011

CNN — 2 arrested as France’s ban on burqas, niqabs takes effect — 12 April 2011

BBC — France issues first fine for woman in Islamic veil — 12 April 2011

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL — France votes to ban full-face veils — 13 July 2010