Convicted Nazi War Criminal Dies at Age of 91

By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MUNICH, Germany–Convicted Nazi war criminal, John Demjanjuk, died on Saturday in a German nursing home. He was 91 years old and suffered from terminal bone marrow disease and other illnesses.

John Demjanjuk after being sentenced to five years imprisonment in May 2011 (Photo Curtesy of MSNBC World News)

In 1977, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel from the United States, where he had been employed in Ohio as a mechanic with Ford Motor Corporation. In Israel, he was accused of and put on trial for being “Ivan the Terrible,” an “infamous Ukrainian guard” at Treblinka Extermination Camp. According to the Telegraph, “even in Treblinka, where beatings, gassing and torture were part of the daily routine, ‘Ivan the Terrible’ stood out for his perverse sadism’” and was allegedly responsible for putting 800,000 prisoners to their death.

After a lengthy trial, Demjanjuk was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity; he was thereafter sentenced to death in April 1988. However, the sentence was overturned five years later on appeal. The court determined that “new evidence threw sufficient doubt on whether Demjanjuk was, in fact, Ivan the Terrible.” In 1993, Israel ordered Demjanjuk back to the United States.

The United States reinstated Demjanjuk’s citizenship in 1998, but it was again revoked in 2002 after “mounting evidence,” suggested that Demjanjuk had served as a guard in Sobibor death camp where more than 27,000 people died during World War II. This evidence, the U.S. government claimed, had been omitted from Demjanjuk’s immigration papers and concealed from United States officials when Demjanjuk immigrated to the country in 1952. Thus, in 2009, he was again extradited, this time to Germany, where he faced yet another war crimes trial.

In May 2011, after eighteen months of trial, the Munich court convicted Demjanjuk on 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder between March and September of 1943—one count for each person who died during his time at the camp.

The court said that although there is no doubt that Demjanjuk had been a prisoner of war, there was also “clear evidence” that Demjanjuk had volunteered to serve with the notorious German army and participated in the “Nazi killing machine that slaughtered 6 million Jews and undesirables.”

Interestingly, there was, according to the Huffington Post, no evidence that Demjanjuk had committed any specific crime. Instead, the prosecution based its case theory on the idea that “if Demjanjuk was at the camp, he was a participant in the killing.” According to the Huffington Post, it was the first time that such a legal argument had been made in Germany. Furthermore, according to Thomas Walther, a lead investigator who prompted Demjanjuk’s prosecution, this verdict could open the door to the prosecution of other “low-ranking Nazi helpers.”

A key piece of evidence to the prosecution’s case was an SS identity card, which “allegedly shows a picture of a young Demjanjuk and indicates he trained at the SS Trawniki camp and was posted to Sobibor.” Court experts claimed the card is genuine while the defense insisted that it was “a fake produced by the Soviet KGB.”

Though sentenced to five years imprisonment, the presiding judge had ordered that Demjanjuk be freed during the appeal process, noting that he was not “a flight risk because of his advanced age, poor health and the fact that [he was] deported from the U.S. two years ago, [and] is stateless.” Demjanjuk was not, however, to leave Germany.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk always denied his presence at any death camp and participation in the Nazi’s atrocities. Instead, he claimed that after having been drafted into the Soviet Red Army, he fell into the hands of German combatants in May 1942 and was thereafter “recruited to work as a guard in exchange for escaping the camps himself.”

After is May 2011 conviction, Demjanjuk told the German judges presiding over his trial, “I am again and again an innocent victim of the Germans. Germany is responsible for the fact that I have lost for good my whole reason to live, my family, my happiness, any future and hope.”

Demjanjuk’s son, John Jr., has accused German prosecutors of ignoring the facts. “My dad,” he said in an email to the Associated Press at the time of the 2011 verdict, “is a survivor of the genocide famine in Ukraine, of the war fighting the Nazis, of the Nazi POW camps…and now of Germany’s attempt to finish the job left unfinished by Hitler’s real henchmen.”

Demjanjuk is survived by his wife Vera, his son John Jr., and two daughters Irene and Lydia.

For mor information, please visit:

MSNBC World News–Nazi War Criminal John Demjanjuk Dies at 91–17 March 2012

The Telegraph–John Demjanjuk–17 March 2012

Iraqi “Emos” Face Threats, Anti-Gay Violence

By Tyler Yates
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A recent string of violent attacks in Iraq have targeted so-called unconventional youths who call themselves “emos.”  Members of the subculture have reportedly been threatened or killed throughout the country, where some see their long hair and alternative style as gay.

Unconventional youths have become the target of recent violence in Iraq (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Times).

While “emo” is a specific subculture in Western culture, it serves as a catchall phrase for nonconformists in Iraq. Gay and effeminate men have been grouped into the category.

The Iraqi government has dismissed the problem, characterizing emos as “Satanists,” and calling the reports of violence fabricated.  In the same report, the Iraqi government gave police “official approval to eliminate [the emo threat] as soon as possible, because the effects of it on society …[are] now threatening a danger.”

Most, if not all, of the attacks have gone unsolved, and no widespread inquiry has been made by the Iraqi police into the targeted killings.

“Our youth are feeling really horrible,” Shi’ite lawmaker Safia al-Souhail said on Friday. “The security forces need to acknowledge this is happening to be able to carry out an investigation.”

Al-Souhail believes that individuals within the Iraqi security forces, who want to stop the spread of democracy and turn the country into an Islamic state, are aiding the campaign against the emos. However, she does not believe that the campaign is supported by the overall government.

It is unclear how many such attacks have taken place, but at least 58 emos – identified by their Western clothing and hairstyles – have been killed in the last two months, according to local officials and security forces in Baghdad.  Iraq is currently engulfed in violence to the point where it has become difficult to determine why many killings have taken place. Fear also prevents people from reporting the slayings to authorities.

A sign in Baghdad’s Sadr City, decorated with two handguns, became a source of controversy recently by threatening 33 accused emos by name, warning them to stop their “dirty deeds” or face the “wrath of God.” The sign warned: “If you do not stop this dirty act within four days, then the punishment of God will fall on you at the hands of Mujahideen.”

Several clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shi’ite, have denounced the killing of emos. However, they have been careful not to endorse the lifestyle, warning of the dangers of imitating Western culture.

Youth across Iraq have rushed to cut their hair and shed their Westernesque clothing.  Anyone who wears something unusual is being labeled an emo, and risks violence.

A coalition of international organizations is pushing for Iraq to address the problem, and launch an investigation to bring the killers to justice.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch: Iraq: Investigate ‘Emo’ Attacks — 16 Mar. 2012

Los Angeles Time — Iraq killings target ’emos’ for nonconformist style — 16 Mar. 2012

Seattle PI — Advocates demand protection for Iraqi Emos — 16 Mar. 2012

San Francisco Chronicle — Iraqi ’emo’ subculture target of antigay attacks — 12 Mar. 2012