Court Stays Deportation of Alleged Ex-Nazi Guard

(CN) - The 6th Circuit stayed the deportation of John Demjanjuk, an Ohio man accused of serving as a guard at a Nazi death camp during World War II. The 89-year-old was taken into federal custody Tuesday, before the federal appeals court delayed his deportation to Germany.

News outlets captured video of Demjanjuk being hauled from his Cleveland home in a wheelchair. The Ukraine native is accused of contributing to the deaths of 29,000 death-camp prisoners during World War II.

He moved to the United States in 1952 and became a naturalized citizen in 1958.

Demjanjuk has repeatedly denied that he ever served as a Nazi prison guard, despite allegations that he was known as "Ivan the terrible" in Treblinka.

An Israeli court convicted him of war crimes in 1988, but he was later exonerated by the Israeli Supreme Court.

In 1999, the U.S. government sought revocation of Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship, claiming he had lied to immigration officials about his service to Nazi Germany.

The district court backed the government and revoked his citizenship in 2002, a decision the federal appeals court in Cincinnati affirmed.

An immigration judge ruled in 2005 that he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.

The 6th Circuit granted his family's request for a stay, after they argued that Demjanjuk was too old and frail to be deported, and that he was never a Nazi guard.

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