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Ivan the Terrible - John Demjanjuk Extradited to Germany

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    He was just a guard for gods sake !

    I think if there was any evidence he shot anyone we would have heard about it by now. Far as I know he was acquitted in israel of being ivan the terrible so he is just 'Ivan the ukranian former russian soldier turned german guard for a spell' and not 'Ivan the terrible'.

    As a 90 year old facing 29,000 counts of accessory to murder is ridiculous. There is obviously not much chance of him surviving the stresses of the trial and the new round of publicity & media demonising he is going to be facing. Not to mention being deported from the country he lived in since the 1950's- entire family being left behind and so on.

    The political gain from this is pretty clear, ie yet more jewish victimhood on the news, more bumping the holocaust news items to the top again. This is PR mileage at the expense of a 90yr old grandfather who is being used as a political football. The wiesentahl centre really are getting more and more desperate in my view if this is their 'most wanted man'. No wonder they have turned their attention to the art world ( http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055332353 )


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    What I would be concerned about here is the actual evidence being presented. Sobibor was a highly secret installation and afaik there are only 3 surviving former prisoners of the camp, including a man named Thomas Blatt. After the breakout in October 1943, Himmler ordered the site destroyed, the camp dismantled and planted over with fast growing trees. Presumably the destruction of the camp would have included all camp records.

    As I already mentioned, I remember the emotional scenes from the courtroom, during the first trial, between 1986-88, when former Treblinka camp inmates swore on oath that John Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, the man accused of operating the Treblinka Gas Chamber. Surprisingly, the Israeli Court disagreed, and released John Demjanjuk on the grounds of an unsafe conviction.

    from the first link in OP
    "For the first time we have even found lists of names of the people who Demjanjuk personally led into the gas chambers"
    German prosecutor Kurt Schrimm

    What does this prove exactly? Presumably these people he led to the Gas Chamber are dead, and cannot testify. If anything, it only lists the people who were gassed, and that's all.

    The case also raises a few other issues. Demjanjuk was Ukranian, and a volunteer in the Waffen SS by all accounts. His alternative would have been to live as a Ukranian civillian, and a reluctance, or refusal to volunteer may well have led to his destitution or assignment as a slave labourer. On joining the Waffen SS, I doubt he would have had any choice about where he was posted. If he had refused, he'd no doubt have been shot, or gassed himself. So where does that place the Sonderkommando in their dilemma ? They were responsible for helping prisoners undress for the Gas Chamber, and recieved extra food alcohol and cigarettes for doing this work. A graphic depiction of their role can be seen in the movie "The Grey Zone", but the question is, technically, were they also complicit in these crimes??

    Finally, who is trying Demjanjuk? and under what law? UN law? because very recently the UN asserted that the Israeli Defence Force committed war crimes, during their Christmas escapade in Gaza. Are the IDF commanders who issued the order, to use White Phosphorous on Civillians in Gaza, going to face a War Crimes trial in the Hague for what they did on television, in front of the whole world?? Let's be honest, the evidence is infinitely more compelling than a list of people led to a gas chamber 66 years ago, who are long dead.

    Is this trial going to be about Justice ? or another helping of double standards? and Germany bending over backwards trying to reconcile its past?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 397 ✭✭motherfunker


    One story I read about was around the time Himmler visited Treblinka and found it in complete chaos, with piles of dead bodies lying everywhere. It said there were thousands of people, just fresh off one of the transports, herded into the yard and that Ukranian ss men were on the roofs of the buildings, firing indiscriminately into the crowd.
    I'm not sure when this guy was meant to be there but if he was there there is a good chance he was involved in some pretty heavy ****, if he was a guard there, I'd say he probably deserves to die.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    FYI

    There is a thread here discussing the legitimacy of his ID card

    http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=355615


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    This is from Pat Buchannan an American conservative (former Republican supremo) who made a few valid points in my view. I would recommend reading it for anyone who does not remember the original trial ;

    http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-the-true-haters-1495

    PJB: The True Haters

    by Patrick J. Buchanan

    On Good Friday, John Demjanjuk, 89 and gravely ill, was ordered deported to Germany to stand trial as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews — at Sobibor camp in Poland.

    Sound familiar? It should. It is a re-enactment of the 1986 extradition of John Demjanjuk to Israel to be tried for the murder of 870,000 Jews — at Treblinka camp in Poland.

    How many men in the history of this country have been so relentlessly pursued and remorselessly persecuted?

    The ordeal of this American Dreyfus began 30 years ago.

    In 1979, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) at Justice, goaded and guided by Yuri Andropov’s KGB, was persuaded that Demjanjuk was “Ivan the Terrible,” a huge, brutal, sadistic guard at Treblinka, who bashed in babies’ heads and slashed off women’s breasts, as he drove hundreds of thousands of Jews into the gas chambers.

    Demjanjuk’s defense was simple: I was never at Treblinka.

    Yet, a dozen survivors, shown a photo spread, identified him as the beast of Treblinka. In 1986, OSI had him extradited to Israel. In 1988, he was convicted and sentenced to death. The greatest Holocaust monster since Mengele was to be hanged.

    His family, friends and lawyers did not give up. They scoured Europe and, in the last days of the Soviet Union, struck pay dirt. In Moscow’s files on Treblinka they discovered a photo of the real “Ivan,” a far bigger, more mature man than the 23-year-old Demjanjuk in 1943.

    Ivan Marchenko was positively identified as Ivan the Terrible.

    To its eternal credit, Israel’s Supreme Court threw aside the verdict and stopped Demjanjuk from being the first man hanged in Jerusalem since Adolf Eichmann in 1961.

    A humiliated OSI, through its Israeli friends, now asked the court to authorize a new trial, charging Demjanjuk with having been a guard at Sobibor — during the same time they previously charged he had been at Treblinka.

    What OSI was admitting was that its case against Demjanjuk, to see him hang from the gallows as “Ivan the Terrible,” had been based on flimsy or falsified evidence and worthless or perjured testimony.

    Replied the court, we don’t do double jeopardy here in Israel.

    Demjanjuk was released. And the grin of the jailer who opened his cell testified that many in Israel never accepted the charge that this simple man was some unrivaled devil of the Holocaust.

    So, after 13 years, the last four on death row reflecting on his hanging for horrors he never committed, Demjanjuk came home to Cleveland, a free man. His citizenship was restored.

    Though disgraced, OSI was not ready to throw in its hand. For it had been dealt a new card by its old comrades in the KGB.

    The new evidence was a signed statement by one “Danilchenko,” who claimed to have been a guard at Sobibor and had worked with Demjanjuk. As this document would have blown up the Treblinka case in Jerusalem, OSI had withheld it from the defense.

    Another document turned up suggesting that Demjanjuk had indeed, after training at Trawniki camp, been assigned to Sobibor.

    When the defense asked to interrogate “Danilchenko,” to verify he had made and signed the statement and to question him on details, they were told this was not possible. Seems Danilchenko had died after signing.

    So, after the first 13 years of his ordeal took him right up to a gallows in Jerusalem, Demjanjuk has now been pursued for another 17 years by an OSI that will not rest until he has been convicted, somewhere, of genocide.

    And so we come to today.

    Demjanjuk is to be taken to Germany and prosecuted as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews at Sobibor — though not one living person can place him at that camp and not even the German prosecutor will say that he ever hurt anyone. One witness in Israel, who was at Sobibor and says he knew all the camp guards, says he never saw Demjanjuk there.

    If Friday’s ruling is upheld, John Demjanjuk, who has been charged with no crime on German soil, is to be taken to Germany, home of the Third Reich, to be tried by Germans for his alleged role in a genocide planned and perpetrated by Germans. He is to serve as the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany’s sins.

    But if Germans wish to prosecute participants in the Holocaust, why not round up some old big-time Nazis, instead of a Ukrainian POW.

    Answer: They cannot. Because the Germans voted an amnesty for themselves in 1969. So now they must find a Slav soldier they captured — and Heinrich Himmler’s SS conscripted and made a camp guard, if he ever was a camp guard — to punish in expiation for Germany’s sins.

    The spirit behind this un-American persecution has never been that of justice tempered by mercy. It is the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    Morlar wrote: »


    Answer: They cannot. Because the Germans voted an amnesty for themselves in 1969. So now they must find a Slav soldier they captured — and Heinrich Himmler’s SS conscripted and made a camp guard, if he ever was a camp guard — to punish in expiation for Germany’s sins.

    The spirit behind this un-American persecution has never been that of justice tempered by mercy. It is the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago.


    Thats simply not true. German citizens can still be prosecuted for war crimes, and there are still court cases ongoing in Germany. And if John Demjanuk really is identified as "Ivan the terrible", he should be prosecuted, age alone should be no excuse.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    Cosmo K wrote: »
    he should be prosecuted, age alone should be no excuse.

    Nowhere on this thread has anyone said that 'age alone' should excuse someone. However being a 90yr old in ill health deported from the country he lived in without breaking any laws since the 1950's is a factor.

    Personally I would expect a more convincing level of evidence to extradite someone who had already spent years on deathrow based on unreliable jewish eyewitness identification & testimony.

    If he was a guard that alone is not enough in my view.

    You should have proof that he personally did something illegal.

    As mentioned there were many guards and some were forced into it - this alone doesn't make them guilty of anything. There were also (as mentioned) sonderkommando who preyed on their own who were never and obviously will never be pursued. There was also a famous rabbi whose name escapes me who coerced jewish women into sex under extreme duress and informed on others while living the high life for himself (I believe this was in the warsaw ghetto but it would probably be easy enough to confirm on google, possibly plaszow).

    There are also countless soviet warcrimes which have never even been investigated, let alone pursued through the courts.

    I am not talking about a simple red army gulag guard (forced into being a guard) of a camp where large numbers of soviet and german citizens died in agony. Which would be the equivalent to the Demjanjuk case.

    I am talking about people on the winning side who created policy and gave orders as well as those who literally pulled the trigger etc None of these were ever pursued as the political will is not there & the victims were not important or fashionable enough for the media or special interest lobby groups to throw their support behind.

    Re your other point - there was a general german amnesty though as I understand it there were exclusions to this for exceptional circumstances.


  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    Morlar wrote: »
    Personally I would expect a more convincing level of evidence to extradite someone who had already spent years on deathrow based on unreliable jewish eyewitness identification & testimony.

    If he was a guard that alone is not enough in my view.

    Well, an american court found that there was enough evidence to extradite him to Germany, and a german court found there was enuogh evidence aginst him, to issue an arrest warrant.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    Cosmo K wrote: »
    an american court found that there was enough evidence to extradite him to Germany, and a german court found there was enuogh evidence aginst him, to issue an arrest warrant.

    Yes, and that is what is being discussed here in this thread.

    Ps there would be more information on the amnesty here (mentioned a few posts above):

    http://books.google.ie/books?id=VMqpuY24EkoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=wolfram+wette

    Page 245 onwards you can also search for 'amnesty' or 'statute of limitations' for more background to this. It was not a straightforward amnesty & as mentioned in the article above it would not apply to non-Germans.


  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    Morlar wrote: »

    He is to serve as the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany’s sins.

    What a stupid conclusion!


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    Originally Posted by Morlar View Post

    He is to serve as the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany’s sins.

    Cosmo K wrote: »
    What a stupid conclusion!

    Probably worth clarifying that I did not say that - it was written by the article's author Pat Buchannan.

    On what basis do you think it was a stupid conclusion if you dont mind me asking ? I would agree it's a bit overly dramatical & simplistic but there is an element of truth to it in my view.


  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    As a german , I have to say, I find this statement quite offensive.

    I want to google this Pat Buchanan guy first, before I answer your question.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    Cosmo K wrote: »
    As a german , I have to say, I find this statement quite offensive.

    I want to google this Pat Buchanan guy first, before I answer your question.

    Not to be pedantic but you take one sentence out of context then say it is a 'stupid conclusion' - I asked you simply why is it you think it is stupid, you then reply that it 'is offensive' and that you need to google the author before providing your reasons ?

    The author is irrelevant in this context, I was just curious as to why you found it a stupid conclusion that's all. I am interested in hearing your reason before I decide for myself whether or not you are right on that point.

    It was a long article which made many valid points of mixed relevance and accuracy - no one is saying 'I agree 100% with every line of this'.

    It was presented for informational value in the context of the thread on this subject. As it happens I believe there is a grain of truth in that sentence which you took out of its context. Though I would not be arrogant enough to expect everyone to agree me - so I am just curious really.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    Morlar wrote: »
    There was also a famous rabbi whose name escapes me who coerced jewish women into sex under extreme duress and informed on others while living the high life for himself (I believe this was in the warsaw ghetto but it would probably be easy enough to confirm on google, possibly plaszow).

    I think This is the guy you mean.

    As I've mentioned earlier, my curiousoty here lies in the amount of double standard. John Demjanjuk is being extradited from the U.S. to face war crimes charges. John Demjanjuk as a Ukranian civillian whose country was overrun by the Nazis, had 2 choices, collaborate, or face destitution, and possible slave labour on a farm, or join the Waffen SS. It's difficult to prove what his motives were now after 60 years.

    More recently, George Bush, Dick Chaney, and Israeli Defence Force Commanders, made conscious decisions to do the things they have done, and they did it on TV in front of the whole world, 5 months ago, not 60 years ago. Will Dick Chaney or George Bush, ever be extradited to face war crimes over Iraq ? Will Israeli Defence Force Commanders ever be extradited to face War Crimes charges, over using White Phosphorous on Gazan Civillians, last Christmas ?

    If Not, then this trial is a sham, and John Demjanjuk a patsy.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    marcsignal wrote: »
    I think This is the guy you mean.

    Thanks for that - that is the same guy I was thinking of as

    The suffering of his 'comrades' was beneath him. He was known to get rid of those he personally disliked by sending them to the camps. On top of this, he sexually abused vulnerable girls under his charge. See Auschwitz: the Nazis and the 'Final Solution Rees, L., especially the testimony of Lucille Eichengreen, pp, 105-131. Failure to succumb to his abuse meant death to the girl.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,869 ✭✭✭Mahatma coat


    Ah LAds you should have learnt by now

    You cant question Israel, if they say someone was somewhere then thats Gospel truth, even if they later come out and say he was somewhere else ath the same time, thats also Gospel Truth and cannot be disputed as fact

    otherwise The'll say you were somewhere you shouldnt have been doing horrible AntiSemetic things.

    also Its Anti Semetic to discuss the IDF and their carryin out of gods Glorious master Plan, if that involves criticism, the IDF are beyond reproach and always conduct themselves to the highest standards (sound like any other organisation being discused here;))

    it is sickening tho what they are doing to this man, there was anotrher aulfella grabbed in Perth a few months back, again hs 'crime' was the same as demjanjuk, he outlived all the others from the camps when the Zionists need someone to wheel out as a distraction form the Holocaust in Gaza.

    if these men were guilty of these charges, well it was 60 years ago. there are no witnesses to their acts, and there are mitigating circumstances if they did it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    Cosmo K wrote: »
    As a german , I have to say, I find this statement quite offensive.

    I want to google this Pat Buchanan guy first, before I answer your question.

    nobody was trying to offend you Cosmo K, or Germany, in fact your input here, as a German, is very much valued and appreciated


  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    Thanks guys.

    Its just, this S**t is gtoing on for so long, the war ended 60 years ago, and here we are, discussing a war crimes trial in 2009.

    Yes he is an old man, and maybe the whole thing is just wrong, but just imagine fore a moment, the international reaction, if germany decided not to bring him to court. There would be even more uproar, I can already see the headlines..." Germany lets known war criminal walk free"....

    I don't think, that even if he is found guilty, that he will have to go to jail. He is simply too old, but they couldn't just let him go.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    Cosmo K wrote: »
    Thanks guys.

    Its just, this S**t is gtoing on for so long, the war ended 60 years ago, and here we are, discussing a war crimes trial in 2009.

    Yes he is an old man, and maybe the whole thing is just wrong, but just imagine fore a moment, the international reaction, if germany decided not to bring him to court. There would be even more uproar, I can already see the headlines..." Germany lets known war criminal walk free"....

    I don't think, that even if he is found guilty, that he will have to go to jail. He is simply too old, but they couldn't just let him go.

    Thanks for your post - and sorry if you were made to feel unwelcome.

    I agree with what you said there - but there is an 90yr old man in serious ill health now facing a trial for 29,000 counts of accessory to murder with practically zero evidence in exsistence that he personally did anything wrong or illegal whatsoever ( apart form possibly being a guard).

    I agree that there would have been uproar (from the likes of the wiesentahl centre, ADL, and other jewish lobby groups etc) if Germany had decided not to proceed with this.

    Yes they would have had a field day in the american media gaining sympathy and support if Germany had not proceeded with this. That is exactly what makes the entire proceedings politically motivated which fact undermines any legitimacy it would otherwise have had and is a large part of why it is objectionable in my view.

    On the point of whether or not he will serve a sentence - he is right now in prison waiting trial. If he is acquited he is still deported permanently from the country where he raised a family since the 1950's. The effect on the psyche and body of a 90yr old in failing health of a lengthy trial of this magnitude & media demonisation are sentence enough in my opinion.

    It is always possible that there may be some evidence about him somewhere which may come to light but at this point the evidenec seems to be ;

    the statement of a single dead man which contradicts the statement of a living man (in addition to the accused).

    And a list of names we are presumed to believe perished in that camp in some unknown/unproven manner or other.

    There is a gaping hole there between the 2 things - a ) possibly he was a guard and c) here are some people we believe died at that camp.

    There is no - b) - he committed this crime to x person on or around x date.

    Imagine for a second the OJ level of proof american courts usually require and tell me that this case here comes within a million miles of meeting those levels.

    Bearing in mind that previously this man has been on death row based on unreliable (and luckily for him disproven) testimony of jewish eyewitnesses this time around you would expect a more impressive standard of proof before going to these lengths considering the circumstances.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,368 ✭✭✭arnhem44


    it'll be interesting to here what so called evidence they have once this trial starts,at ninety years of age it seems pointless to pursue such a case,all this will amount to is more political hype.Who will the Jewish community pursue once all these guys are gone,they should start looking at themselves in the mirror for a change and see what an oppressive state they've become


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  • Registered Users Posts: 985 ✭✭✭Cosmo K


    Interesting article in a german magazine (its in english), not just about the Demjanuk case:

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    arnhem44 wrote: »
    Who will the Jewish community pursue once all these guys are gone

    my moneys on them having another go at the Hunt Museum :pac:


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    i recently heard about this interesting item on the BBC world service

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6557344.ece

    I wonder how many British guards are going to be dragged up before the international courts over it, and it was only in the 1950's so there should be at least a few still alive.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31886167/ns/world_news-europe/

    On the French channel TV5 last night I heard an interview with the prosecution saying that the 'duress factor' would have to be taken into account, (whether he would have been pressured to comply by the SS to carry out these duties,or be shot himself) which at least is an admission that this is a possibility.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    The numbers have come down too - it was accessory to 29.000 murders now it is 27,900 (at this rate he will be out by christmas). I think there is an awful lot of political gain involved in this trial for the likes of the holocaust lobby & the pro israel lobby.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,427 ✭✭✭Dr Strange


    At least, as they said, it's probably going to be Germany's last ever World War II related trial. Should've stopped years ago. :mad:


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭marcsignal


    Found some interesting stuff about Sobibor that would raise an eyebrow or two..

    http://www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrtksgwl.html

    http://www.deathcamps.org/sobibor/maps.html

    I reckon it's time Tony Robinson (Time Team) paid a visit....

    ...I wonder does he do nixers???? :pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    There was another trial which came to a verdict today. A 90yr old was sentenced to life in prison in Germany.

    The standard of proof seems to be exceptionally low if you ask me.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8194691.stm
    Scheungraber, the former commander of a company of engineers, had lived for decades as a free man, and served on the town council in Ottobrunn, outside Munich.

    He ran a furniture shop, attended German veterans' marches and recently received an award for municipal service.


    &

    http://www.kansas.com/wireupdates/story/925630.html

    Scheungraber, who was in command of a company of engineers, maintains he was not in Falzano di Cortona when the killings happened, but was in charge of overseeing reconstruction of a nearby bridge.

    His defense team called for an acquittal in their closing arguments in July, saying that there was no evidence of Scheungraber's personal guilt.

    Prosecutors acknowledged that there are no known living witnesses who heard Scheungraber give the order to kill the civilians. But they said he was seen in pictures at the burial of the two German soldiers for whose deaths the reprisals were carried out.

    Also, a former employee testified at the end of July that he remembered Scheungraber saying to him once in the 1970s that he couldn't visit Italy because of what had happened during the war, which had to do with "shooting a dozen men and blowing them into the air."

    The witness, whose name was only given as Eugen S., testified he did not remember Scheungraber saying he had given the order, though he said the defendant told the story "as if it were his decision."

    Perhaps the most dramatic testimony in the trial came in October from the sole survivor of the massacre, Gino Massetti, who was 15 when he was rounded up by German troops and herded into the barn before it was blown up.

    "I heard a scream, and that was it then," he said. "They were all dead."

    Massetti told the court that just before the barn was blown up, he saw a man he assumed was an officer drive up on a motorcycle and give what appeared to be an order to the others. But, he testified, he could not describe the officer at all and didn't understand what he had said because it was in German.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,368 ✭✭✭arnhem44


    It dosen't make sense to sentence a 90 year old man to life imprisonment,god if someone can be sentenced using that evidence I wouldn't like to be an innocent man wrongly accused over there.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    arnhem44 wrote: »
    It dosen't make sense to sentence a 90 year old man to life imprisonment,god if someone can be sentenced using that evidence I wouldn't like to be an innocent man wrongly accused over there.

    If you can imagine the 1980's in Ireland and a 90 yr old former british soldier who fought during the Irish war of independence being convicted on that sort of evidence ?

    No eye witnesses to the events, no direct proof that he personally did anything wrong ? I doubt we would have even looked for a conviction nevermind a 90yr old getting a life sentence.

    It is hard to understand.

    Even in Ireland today there are cases of british soldiers who in the 1980's killed civilians for whom there was eyewitness evidence etc, a lot more evidence than the above example provides against a 90yr old for something that happened in the 1940's. It really is bizzare and seems that this guy is being sacrificed to a vindictive prosecutor who is politically motivated in my view.


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