You're reading: Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk defense: KGB tortured witnesses

MUNICH (AP) — John Demjanjuk's lawyer says former Nazi death camp guards were tortured for confessions by the Soviets after the war and their statements shouldn't be used as evidence.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk served in the Red Army and is on trial, accused of becoming a guard at Sobibor after he was captured by the Germans. He denies the charges.

In statements read in court Thursday, two ex-guards told Soviet authorities years after the war they had admitted to things in the immediate post-war years only because they were tortured.

Attorney Ulrich Busch says that shows no such statements should be used.

In a statement from a 1949 KGB interrogation read previously in court, former Ukrainian Sobibor guard Ignat Danilchenko said he remembered Demjanjuk from the death camp.