Doctors to say soon whether Nazi guard fit for trial

(DEMJANJUK, TRIAL, GERMAN, SHOULD, WINKLER, WITHIN, WE`LL)

By Dave Graham
BERLIN (Reuters) - Doctors should rule this week whether accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial on charges of assisting in the killing of thousands of Jews in World War Two, German prosecutors said Monday.
The 89-year-old Demjanjuk arrived last month from the United States to face charges he aided the killing of 29,000 Jews in 1943, and has been held in a German jail since May 12, pending a medical examination of whether he is fit to appear in court.
His family have fought efforts to put him on trial, arguing he suffers from spinal problems, kidney failure and anemia.
Munich state prosecutor Anton Winkler said doctors were expected to deliver their report this week.
"We believe he should be fit to stand trial within limits at least," said Winkler. "Once the assessment is there, I think we`ll bring charges within two weeks -- so at the moment that should be by mid-July."
Though Demjanjuk would probably have to be examined in court for shorter periods than younger suspects, available evidence suggested a trial should be possible, Winkler added.
If it goes ahead, it would likely be Germany`s last major Nazi trial.
Born in Ukraine, Demjanjuk tops the Simon Wiesenthal Center`s list of its 10 most-wanted suspected war criminals. Munich prosecutors want him tried for assisting in murders at Sobibor extermination camp, in what is now Poland.
He denies any role in the Holocaust.
Guenther Maull, Demjanjuk`s German lawyer, declined to make an assessment of his health.
"We`ll have to see what `within limits` really means," he told Reuters in response to Winkler`s comment. "And we`ll have to look into that again if it should go to trial."
Both prosecutors in Munich and Maull say Demjanjuk could go on trial by the autumn if he is deemed fit to stand.
Demjanjuk has said he was drafted into the Russian army in 1941, became a German prisoner of war a year later and served at German prison camps until 1944. He immigrated to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958.
In 1981, he was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988 after Holocaust survivors said he was the notorious guard "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka camp, where 870,000 people died.
Israel`s Supreme Court later overturned his conviction when new evidence showed another man was likely the Treblinka guard.  Continued...
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