Munich - German judges gave the go-ahead Friday for John Demjanjuk, 89, to face trial, probably from November, as an accessory to murder for 27,900 killings in a Nazi death camp in Poland in 1943. Born in Ukraine and a longtime resident of the US state of Ohio, Demjanjuk was expelled to Germany in May. Prosecutors then indicted him. Acceptance of the case, announced by the Munich state court media office, was the next step in bringing him to trial.
The judges did not set a date or a venue, but there has been speculation he will be tried in an auditorium at Stadelheim Prison where he is currently being cared for in the sick bay because of his age.
Doctors said earlier he was mentally and physically fit enough to attend a trial for two sessions of 90 minutes each per day.
Germany alleges Demjanjuk was an auxiliary, or low-ranking foreign-born guard, in the SS and that he worked for several months at Sobibor camp while Jews were killed in the camp gas chambers.
The Munich court confirmed Friday his continued detention, effectively overruling demands from his lawyers for bail.
A trial could be lengthy, especially because the principal state evidence will be an SS personnel card in Demjanjuk's name.
German law does not require an accused to enter a plea. Demjanjuk has declined to answer questions about the case.
Unlike the Nazi concentration camps where inmates were put into forced labour, Sobibor had the sole purpose of killing inmates.
The state case is that Demjanjuk was a Red Army soldier captured in 1942 who consented to undergo training by the SS at Travniki, and was then seconded as a guard to the Sobibor death camp, followed by the Flossenbuerg concentration camp.
The German-language SS record card contains the name Iwan Demjanjuk, a black-and-white photograph, a physical description, a list of issued clothing and a list of deployments ending with a move to Sobibor in 1943.
After the war he stayed in Germany as a displaced person, then obtained US permission to resettle in the United States in 1952. He was later stripped of his US citizenship and is now stateless.
