By REUTERS
Published: December 18, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2004 (Reuters) - The government said Friday [Dec. 17, 2004] that it had asked an immigration judge to deport John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian immigrant and retired autoworker who is accused of working as a guard at several Nazi camps.

Mr. Demjanjuk, who was once thought to be the sadistic Nazi death camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible, has been found guilty of lying to gain entry to the United States. In April, a federal appeals court affirmed a lower court decision revoking his American citizenship on multiple grounds, including his "willing" service in a unit "dedicated to exploiting and exterminating" Jewish civilians in Nazi-occupied Poland.

A document filed Friday by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security seeks Mr. Demjanjuk's deportation for his participation in Nazi-sponsored persecution while serving as an armed SS guard and because he lied about his wartime job and residences when he applied for an immigration visa in 1952. It was not clear where he might be sent.

The United States accused Mr. Demjanjuk in 1977 of being Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka death camp. Extradited to Israel, he was tried and sentenced to death. But subsequent evidence from the former Soviet Union undermined eyewitness testimony, and Israel's supreme court freed him in 1993