By THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press Writer
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk lost his bid Thursday to get the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his deportation to Germany, where an arrest warrant accuses him of 29,000 counts of accessory to murder during World War II.
Justice John Paul Stevens denied, without comment, Demjanjuk's plea to step into his case. The 89-year-old retired autoworker lives in suburban Cleveland, and he, his family and his lawyers say he's in poor health and too frail to be sent overseas.
Demjanjuk maintains he was held by the Germans as a Soviet prisoner of war and was never a camp guard.
With his U.S. options dwindling, Demjanjuk's attorney in Germany made a separate appeal Thursday to a German court to block the deportation.
There was no immediate indication from Immigration and Customs Enforcement whether the agency would move promptly to deport Demjanjuk.
Messages seeking comment were left with an agency spokesman.
John Demjanjuk Jr. gave no indication in an e-mail to The Associated Press of any further appeal planned on his father's behalf.
"After nearly killing him in combat as a Soviet soldier and Ukrainian POW, it appears Germany will now be responsible to care for him in a nursing home for the remainder of his life -- if he survives the transportation," he wrote.
There was no immediate comment on Stevens' decision from Demjanjuk's attorney, John Broadley. A message was left for him.
The Department of Justice said it was working on the case but would not specify any deportation schedule.
"The U.S. government will continue to work in cooperation with the Government of Germany to affect the removal of Mr. Demjanjuk to Germany," spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said in an e-mail.
Demjanjuk was carried from his house in a wheelchair by immigration officers on April 14, and within hours his attorney won a reprieve from an appeals court. The three-judge panel in Cincinnati cleared the way for his deportation last week, and Demjanjuk's attorney appealed to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The two sides offered dueling videos -- the family's showing Demjanjuk moaning in apparent pain as an immigration doctor examined him before the deportation attempt.
The government responded with a surveillance video showing Demjanjuk walking slowly but unassisted.
A Berlin administrative court on Wednesday rejected an emergency lawsuit filed by Demjanjuk last week arguing that the German government should rescind its agreement to accept him from the U.S.
Demjanjuk is wanted on a Munich arrest warrant that accuses him of being an accessory to murders at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland as a guard.
Demjanjuk attorney Ulrich Busch told the AP in a telephone interview from his office in Ratingen, near Duesseldorf, that Germany should say it will not take Demjanjuk for humanitarian reasons.
"If the Germans accept him for deportation, he loses his family, he loses his house, he loses his rights in the States; he loses everything," Busch said. "And he will never be allowed to come back."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
