John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker embroiled in three decades of legal proceedings over his Nazi-era past, was freed pending an appeal on Thursday after a court sentenced him to five years in prison for helping to force some 28,000 Jews to their deaths during the Holocaust. Wearing a pale blue baseball cap and dark glasses, and sitting in a wheelchair, Mr. Demjanjuk, 91, showed no discernible emotion as the court announced its findings after a trial lasting almost 18 months. The appeal proceedings could take an additional year.

If the sentence is upheld, it remains unclear how much credit Mr. Demjanjuk will get for time already served. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, his trial is among the last major hearings concerning Nazi war crimes to be heard in Germany.

Prosecutors had charged that Mr. Demjanjuk worked as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. His trial in Munich, beginning in December 2009, was the second time that he had been prosecuted — he was sentenced to death in Israel in 1988 only to have his conviction overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity.

When the trial opened, Mr. Demjanjuk was listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as its most wanted Nazi war criminal.

Mr. Demjanjuk (pronounced dem-ahn-YUKE) declined to make a final statement to the court on Thursday.

His trial was held despite arguments by his lawyers and family that he was too sick to participate because he suffered from ailments including bone marrow disease. Doctors, however, concluded that he could stand trial provided that hearings were restricted to two 90-minute sessions a day.

An e-mail signed by Mr. Demjanjuk’s son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said: “There remains not a scintilla of evidence he ever hurt a single person anywhere. While some may take satisfaction from this event, this verdict is no more definitive today than the wrongful Israeli conviction and death sentence was previously.”

As survivors and defendants have aged and died, the prosecution of Nazi-era war criminals has become increasingly difficult because, 66 years after the end of World War II, few potential witnesses are still alive. In the absence of specific evidence against him, the case against Mr. Demjanjuk rested on the prosecution’s charge that anyone working at the camp at the time he was there shared responsibility for its function of systematic murder.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/europe/13nazi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss