Jail Term Sought

BERLIN — State prosecutors in Munich are seeking a six-year jail sentence for accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk. The request came in closing arguments March 22. A verdict is expected in May after a 1-1/2 year trial. Prosecutors said evidence shows Demjanjuk, 90, actively took part in murdering 27,900 Jews in the Nazi death camp Sobibor in Poland in 1943. Demjanjuk’s lawyer said the Ukraine native was taken prisoner by the Nazis and forced to train as an SS guard. Demjanjuk immigrated to the United States after the war and lived in suburban Cleveland. He was later stripped of his citizenship for lying about his Nazi past. A death sentence against him was overturned in Israel after the Supreme Court found reasonable doubt he was the notorious “Ivan the Terrible” guard at Treblinka. In 2009, he was deported from the United States to Germany to face the Sobibor charges.

BGU Ties Cut

JOHANNESBURG — The University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) faculty senate voted March 23 to cut ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In a secret ballot, 72 members voted in favour of ending a memorandum of understanding between the schools, with 45 voting against. After a deal to collaborate on biotechnology and water purification projects was announced in 2009, several Johannesburg faculty members protested, complaining of “Israeli apartheid.” Last October, the faculty senate passed a resolution requiring the two institutions to amend the memorandum to include Palestinian universities and researchers and said ties would be cut if the conditions weren’t met by spring. UJ also said at the time that it wouldn’t engage in activities with BGU that had direct or indirect military implications. The boycott was championed by Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and at least 400 other prominent South African figures, who signed a petition calling on UJ academics and students to end ties with BGU.