THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 16 Friday, March 7, 1986 carol hoo Berman cc ilery 647-3666 155 south bates • birmingham d i iklgf\ 6 t 00 se \ede 10 so w, 0 , ics co 10:30-5:00 T-SAT. MARCH 1-28 w 00000110 l.01 While Previous " All SsIo• Finsl, SOO EICIllded 411 NEWS =so Justice In Jerusalem John Demjanjuk, known to his victims as "Ivan the Terrible," has been extradited to Israel to face charges. for Nazi-war crimes. But some Israeli authorities are critical of the pending trial. BY HELEN DAVIS Jewish News Israeli Correspondent Jerusalem — John Demjanjuk — known to survivors of the Treblinka death camp as "Ivan the Terrible" — arrived in Israel last Friday to face charges of killing up to half a million Jews at Treblinka in Poland. Demjanjuk, whose appeal against extradition to Israel was rejected in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last week, will be tried under Israeli laws which deal with crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity. Demjanjuk, now 66, a diesel mechanic who allegedly oper- ated the gas chambers at Treb- linka during World War II, will be the first alleged Nazi war criminal go on trial in Jerusalem since Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the Holocaust, was tried in 'Is- rael 25 years ago. Eichinann was abducted from - Buenos Aires in 1960 by Israeli intelligence agents and flown ' secretly to Israel. He was tried . the following year and sub- sequently hanged, the only per- son in Israel's history to be exe- cuted. Israel's Justice Minister, Moshe Nissim, noted pointedly last week that Demjanjuk will be tried by a panel of three judges, the legal requirement for cases which carry the death sen- tence. An Israeli Justice Ministry of- ficial told The Jewish News that it may be several months before Demjanjuk's trial begins and that the trial itself — which is expected to attract enormous in- ternational media attention — is expected to last for several months. Elaborate security measures, codenamed "Operation Justice," were in force for Demjanjuk's arrival in Israel at 11:30 a.m. last Friday in the custody of a team of U.S. federal agents. He was taken directly to his cell in the Ayalon Prison, Ftamle — the same prison where Eichmann was confined — and is being held in solitary con- finement under round-the-clock observation by a special five- man security detail, who are monitoring every move he makes through two closed- circuit television cameras to ensure that he does not attempt to take his own life. Just hours before his arrival, foreign correspondents were shown the freshly painted '3 x 3.5-yard cell which is Demjan- juk's new "home." The cell contained a 'simple bed, a small wooden chair, a table and a kitchen sink. On the bed were three woolen blankets, orange shirts and brown trous- ers, all labelled with the He- John Demjanjuk brew initials, "Bet Samech" — prison. There was also a new dark blue jersey and size 12 socks. Underneath the bed was a pair of black shoes and plastic slippers still in their original plastic bag. Demjanjuk's prison routine involves rising each day at 6 a.m. and eating the regular prison food — the same fare, in fact, that Israeli soldiers eat in the field. Attached to the cell is a small courtyard, roofed by barbed wire, where he is able to walk 12 yards in one direction and eight yards in the other. He will receive whatever religious ministrations he requires. Some 600 prisoners, about 60 percent of whom are serving life sentences, are accommodated at the prison and Demjanjuk will receive the same treatment as all other inmates, although no decision has yet been made about •whether he will work. It is also understood that when his trial opens later this 'year, Demjanjuk will occupy the same glass booth that was used to shield Eichmann from possi- ble attacks from the public who attended the court hearings. One team of six Israeli inves- tigators and another of three senior state prosecutors have been working full-time for the past six months assembling evi- dence based on statements by the very few inmates of Treb- linka who survived and on documents from the archives of Yad Vashem, the Nazi Holocaust memorial and documentation center in Jerusalem. Demjanjuk settled in Cleve- land, Ohio, in the early 1950s, where he worked at a well-paid job as a diesel mechanic for the Ford Motor Co. He was iden- , Continued on Page 23