Munich - John Demjanjuk, 89, who is accused of taking people to the gas chambers at a Nazi death camp in 1943, landed Tuesday in Germany, where he is wanted on accessory-to-murder charges, Munich police sources said. US federal agents had taken Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, who has lost his US nationality, away from his Ohio home the previous day and escorted him on a specially chartered plane to Germany.
German officials had said before his arrival that he would be arrested as soon as he reached German soil.
He was then expected to be driven to Stadelheim Prison, the Munich city jail, where he would be placed in investigative custody. German prosecutors say they will interview him before making the decision to indict him.
Demjanjuk is accused of helping as a 23-year-old camp guard to murder 29,000 Jews at Sobibor concentration camp. Because of his age, if tried, the case might be the last major war-crimes from the Second World War.
The German warrant for his arrest was issued in March, but his expulsion from the United States as a stateless person was delayed for weeks by a series of legal challenges citing his advanced age.
The plane carrying Demjanjuk to Germany was outfitted with medical equipment, including oxygen and a defibrillator, and a doctor was on board. Germany has said he might be kept in the medical block of the prison.
After World War II, Demjanjuk lived in Germany as a refugee until 1952 when he translated his first name from Ivan to its English equivalent John and moved to the United States.
Demjanjuk was acquitted in 1993 by the Israeli Supreme Court of charges that he worked at a different death camp, Treblinka, saving him from the death sentence of a lower court in Israel.
