'Nazi guard' accused threatens hunger strike

John Demjanjuk told a Munich state court yesterday he would go on hunger strike unless judges pursue more evidence which he claims could exonerate him of charges he served as a Nazi death camp guard.

A verdict in Demjanjuk's trial is expected as early as March. The Ukrainian-born former carworker accused judges of turning "a blind eye to justice" by repeatedly rejecting defence motions for more documents. "Germany, the nation which murdered with merciless cruelty millions of innocent people, attempts to extinguish my dignity, my soul, my spirit, and indeed my life with a political show trial, seeking to blame me, a Ukrainian peasant, for the crimes committed by Germans in World War II," he said in a statement read to the court.

Demjanjuk, 90, is accused of 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly having been a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland.