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Accused Nazi Guard John Demjanjuk Dies at 91
Demjanjuk emerges from a Munich court after a judge sentenced him to 5 years in prison.Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images
CLEVELAND--Former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk died Saturday (March 17) in Germany, ending nearly 35 years of legal battles with officials in three countries who claimed he was a guard in a Nazi death camp. He was 91.
During his decades-long trials, Demjanjuk was imprisoned in the United States, sentenced to death in Israel -- until its highest court freed him -- and, last May, convicted in Germany for serving as an accessory in the deaths of more than 28,000 people at a death camp.
A German court sentenced Demjanjuk to five years in prison but he was freed while he appealed the conviction.
Demjanjuk had been living in a nursing home in Bad Feilnbach in southern Germany, according to The Associated Press. He died nearly three years after being taken from his home in suburban Cleveland and flown overseas.
Demjanjuk was deported after U.S. judges ruled that he lied about his Nazi past when he entered the country in 1952 and that he was a guard at two concentration camps and a death camp in World War II.