The trial of Ivan "John" Demjanjuk on charges of aiding the murder of 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor concentration camp is slated to start in the middle of October, according to a Sunday report by the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The magazine says that the 93-page indictment sets out to refute the Ukrainian-born former guard's claim that as a prisoner of war, he had no choice but to work for the Nazis. Prosecutors cite several cases of non-German guards who managed to get themselves transferred out of camps including Sobibor.
The judges have already agreed to hear testimony from eight of the 22 witnesses summoned by the prosecution. They include concentration camp survivors and family members who lost relatives in Sobibor.