The trial of John Demjanjuk

In 1986 a car factory worker from the United States was accused of being ‘Ivan the Terrible’, a notorious concentration camp guard at Treblinka during the Holocaust.

John Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States to Israel.

His trial became one of the most high profile cases in Israel’s history.

He was convicted, then later acquitted and then re-convicted in a German court for having worked in a different camp, Sobibor.

Lawyers for the defence, Yoram Sheftel, and prosecution, Eli Gabay, in the Israeli trial tell Dan Hardoon about the process of trying Demjanjuk, and the impact it made on their country’s society.

A Whistledown production for BBC World Service.

(Photo: John Demjanjuk in the Supreme Court of Israel. Credit: David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)