John Demjanjuk - Death, Burial, and Appeal To Restore U.S. Citizenship

Death, Burial, and Appeal To Restore U.S. Citizenship

John Demjanjuk died at a home for the elderly in Bad Feilnbach, Germany on 17 March 2012, aged 91. As a consequence of his appeal not having been heard, Demjanuk's conviction of May 2011 by a lower court was invalidated; and he died without a criminal record. Demjanjuk's lawyer, Dr. Ulrich Busch, had demanded that the Munich court publish a clarifying statement that Demjanjuk was presumed innocent and without a criminal record "Given the false statements in international media reports that Demjanjuk died a convicted war criminal".

Following his death, his relatives requested that he be buried in the United States, where he used to reside. Jewish organizations have opposed this, claiming that his burial site would become a centre for neo-Nazi activity.

On 31 March 2012, John Demjanjuk was reported to be buried at an undisclosed U.S. location.

On 12 April 2012, Demjanjuk's attorney's filed an appeal to posthumously restore his U.S. citizenship. The motion filed in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati alleged that the U.S. government withheld a key FBI document that could have helped him in his bid to keep his citizenship. In 2011 the Associated Press had uncovered a secret 1985 FBI report which indicated that a Nazi ID card showing that Demjanjuk had served as a death camp guard was a Soviet-made fake. The bulk of the defense motion was in regard to the government withholding that document along with an ongoing pattern of withholding other exculpatory materials. The new suit claimed, however, that a matter does not rest on a singular document, but that “hundreds of files” recently declassified by a National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland could have aided Demjanjuk’s efforts to recover U.S. citizenship.

On 28 June 2012, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that Demjanjuk could not regain his citizenship posthumously. The three-judge panel said in its ruling that his death made the case moot, and that the appeal was without merit, given the court's 2004 decision that Demjanjuk's denaturalization should not be revoked. On 11 September 2012, the court denied Demjanjuk's request to have the appeal reheard en banc by the full court.

In early June 2012, Ulrich Busch, Demjanjuk's attorney, filed a complaint with Bavarian prosecutors claiming that pain medication Novalgin (known in the U.S. as Metazimole or dipyrone) that had been administered to Demjanjuk helped lead to his death. Busch asked prosecutors to open an investigation of five doctors and a nurse on suspicion of manslaughter and causing bodily harm.