Deportation said imminent for Demjanjuk

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk left his Ohio home Monday by ambulance amid indications he was about to be deported to Germany for trial in the deaths of 29,000 Jews, local media reports said.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper reported that Demjanjuk was taken to a federal building in Cleveland housing an immigration office and that he would be flown by private jet to Germany from Cleveland's Burke lakefront airport sometime after 7 p.m. EDT (midnight British time).

The German Justice Ministry had said it expected him to arrive in Germany Tuesday.

Live television from outside the home of the 89-year-old former autoworker showed only a person shielded by a bed sheet being taken from the home and put in the ambulance, which then drove off under escort, leaving reporters present unable to verify it was Demjanjuk.

Demjanjuk, listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre as No. 1 on its list of "Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals," had been told last week to surrender for deportation.

An earlier effort to remove him forcibly took place at his house on April 14, but he was returned home later that day after a court intervened. Last week, however, the U.S. Supreme court refused to reinstate a stay preventing him from being deported.

"I'm sorry that it took so long," Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, told Reuters there. "At last we have a minor bit of justice with regard to Demjanjuk. Let's look forward to him having a just trial in Germany. It symbolizes that the world is still aware and we cannot set it aside."

Demjanjuk has spinal problems, kidney failure, anaemia, is very weak and needs help to stand up or move about, according to court filings.