Berlin - A German tribunal on Thursday rejected a legal challenge to efforts to bring Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 89, to Germany for trial for allegedly assisting in the Nazi death camp murders of 29,000 Jews. The state administrative tribunal ruled that the German government is under no duty to oppose Demjanjuk's expulsion from US soil to Germany.
It threw out an application by Demjanjuk's German lawyer for an injunction that would have required the Germans to put Demjanjuk straight back on a plane to the United States.
Tribunal officials said the judge had ruled that expulsion by the United States was an act that could take place even without German consent. Once Demjanjuk was on German soil, he would have to be arrested and kept there under the warrant.
The United States is attempting to deport Demjanjuk, who is stateless after being stripped of his US citizenship. German prosecutors have issued a warrant for his arrest, but have not indicted him yet. They have not sought formal extradition.
Demjanjuk's lawyers are pursuing separate legal action in US courts to halt the deportation, but have lost all their cases so far.
John Demjanjuk's lawyer John Broadley told the German Press Agency
