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German authorities seek old people's home for Demjanjuk

Other News Materials 13 May 2011 17:38 (UTC +04:00)

German authorities said Friday they were still seeking an old people's home that would accept John Demjanjuk, a day after he was handed a five-year prison term for his work in a Nazi death camp but immediately freed pending a possible appeal, DPA reported.

He has been in custody in a Munich remand jail for the past two years.

"We can't just push a 91-year-old out on the street and say, 'bye- bye'," said Jochen Menzel, deputy chief of Stadelheim Jail.

"We're urgently checking around social-welfare agencies and church agencies for a retirement home that would take him."

There was no word on who would pay for his accommodation, but social-welfare authorities generally pay in Germany for anyone without assets. Demjanjuk's family live in the United States.

Without waiting for an appeal to be filed, judges ordered Demjanjuk released Thursday. They said his two years on remand counted towards the sentence and it would be up to appeal judges to decide if he must serve out the rest.

He was convicted of being an accessory to more than 28,000 Holocaust murders during 1943 at Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland through his employment as a uniformed guard there.

Demjanjuk's lawyer said before the verdict he would appeal against any conviction.

Ukraine-born Demjanjuk has been stateless since his naturalization as a US citizen was revoked. He lived in the Munich area of Germany for about six years after the Second World War.

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