Demjanjuk declared fit to stand trial

A man alleged to have helped to kill almost 30 thousand Jews in a Nazi death camp has been deemed fit to stand trial in Germany by doctors.

John Demjanjuk was extradited from the US and has been held in a jail near Munich since May.

His family has fought efforts to put him on trial, arguing that the 89-year-old is too frail.

The medical experts placed only one condition – that court appearances be limited to two 90-minute sessions a day.

John Demjanjuk was stripped of his US citizenship after being accused in the 1970’s of being Ivan the Terrible, a notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp.

But the court in Israel overturned the sentence of death placed on him when evidence showed it was a case of mistaken identity.

The 89-year-old denies claims that he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp and an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews.

He claims instead that, as a Red Army soldier, he was captured by Germans in his native Ukraine and kept as a prisoner of war.

Officials say the trial may begin by the autumn.

Copyright © 2009 euronews

tags: War crimes, World War II