[JURIST] US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] Justice John Paul Stevens on Thursday denied an application for stay of deportation [text, PDF] filed by accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive]. Demjanjuk faces deportation to Germany, where in March a Munich district court charged [JURIST report] him with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor [Death Camps backgrounder] concentration camp. Demjanjuk could choose to file an application with another justice [Plain Dealer report]. Also Thursday, lawyers for Demjanjuk said that he has appealed [AP report] a Wednesday ruling [JURIST report] by a Berlin court that rejected a suit seeking to block his deportation.

Demjanjuk has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In 2008, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey [order, PDF; JURIST report], ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demjanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling [JURIST report] by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy which ordered his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost his appeal to the BIA. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court which found that he was a notorious guard from Treblinka nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible." The sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, and Demjanjuk returned to the US.