Accused former death camp guard John Demjanjuk is brought into a courtroom in Munich, southern Germany Tuesday, March 16, 2010. Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old former U.S. auto worker, is on trial in Germany facing charges he helped force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers in the Sobibor extermination camp in 1943. (AP Photo/Oliver Lang, pool) (Oliver Lang, ASSOCIATED PRESS / March 16, 2010)
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MUNICH (AP) — An expert witness says a statement being used as evidence against John Demjanjuk should be treated with the "highest caution" because it came from a KGB interrogation.
Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio auto worker is charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly serving as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp in 1943. He denies being there.
Another guard at the camp, Ignat Danilchenko, told the KGB in 1979 he remembered Demjanjuk from Sobibor.
But historian Dieter Pohl told the court Thursday it appeared Danilchenko was telling the KGB what interrogators wanted to hear.
Co-prosecutor Stefan Schuenemann dismissed the possible setback, saying the statement was only "a small piece" of the overall evidence against Demjanjuk.
Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio auto worker is charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly serving as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp in 1943. He denies being there.
Another guard at the camp, Ignat Danilchenko, told the KGB in 1979 he remembered Demjanjuk from Sobibor.
But historian Dieter Pohl told the court Thursday it appeared Danilchenko was telling the KGB what interrogators wanted to hear.
Co-prosecutor Stefan Schuenemann dismissed the possible setback, saying the statement was only "a small piece" of the overall evidence against Demjanjuk.
