
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 1, 1993                   TAG: 9307010366
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

DEPORTED SUSPECT'S GUILT QUESTIONED

A report to a federal appeals court Wednesday concluded that there was substantial doubt about the government's longstanding assertion that John Demjanjuk, a retired Cleveland autoworker, was Ivan the Terrible, the sadistic gas chamber operator who drove thousands of Jews to their deaths in World War II.

The report by Thomas A. Wiseman Jr., a federal district judge in Nashville, Tenn., found in a 10-month inquiry that government prosecutors who stripped Demjanjuk of his citizenship and obtained an order to deport him failed to pursue leads contradicting the theory that he was the murderous Ivan of the Treblinka death camp.

But in a legal review prepared at the request of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, Wiseman concluded that federal prosecutors did not break the law or intentionally conceal evidence that would have cleared Demjanjuk of war crimes.

As a result, Wiseman said he determined that Justice Department prosecutors acted legally in a case that ended with Demjanjuk's extradition to Israel, where he was tried and convicted of war crimes in 1988. Therefore, Wiseman recommended that the orders against Demjanjuk stand and urged the appeals court to close the case.

It was unclear, however, whether any action would result from the conclusions. At the least, Wiseman's report further challenged the government's insistence that its evidence proves Demjanjuk is Ivan, who beat and slashed his victims as he herded them into gas chambers.

The appellate court had reopened the case on its own initiative in 1992, five years after it rejected Demjanjuk's appeal of his extradition to Israel. A panel of three appeals court judges appointed Wiseman to conduct an inquiry into the whether the government engaged in misconduct.

His findings are recommendations to the panel, which has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 4. The appellate court can accept Wiseman's findings or reach its own conclusions, but legal experts said it was doubtful that a U.S. court could affect Demjanjuk's case in Israel.

Edward W. Nishnic, Demjanjuk's son-in-law who has led his defense team, said Wednesday that even though the report rejected assertions of government wrongdoing, he regarded it as a victory. "For the first time in 15 years, a federal judge is saying there's considerable doubt about Demjanjuk's being Ivan," he said.

by CNB