Israel's chief justice Friday gave Holocaust survivors and Nazi hunters 13 more days to present a final appeal to retry John Demjanjuk on new war crimes charges.
The decision by Meir Shamgar, chief justice of the Supreme Court, gives the nine petitioners additional time to convince the highest level of the court that it should look at the case again.Meanwhile, Demjanjuk must remain in custody despite his acquittal last month on charges he was the Nazi guard "Ivan the Terrible."
Shamgar appeared to be taking into account the sensitivity of Holocaust survivors to enable them to exhaust all legal avenues for trying Demjanjuk. But chances for a new trial were seen as remote.
Shamgar sat alone on the bench. Demjanjuk, who has maintained his innocence throughout, was not in the courtroom.
The petitioners had asked Shamgar for the extra time to review evidence that Demjanjuk's work as an alleged Nazi guard could constitute grounds for a new trial.
"I'm happy for every day that Demjanjuk is suffering," said Noam Federman, representing the ultra-right Kach party, one of the petitioners. "Even if they agree to another trial he'll eventually get out and when he does there will be someone to take care of him."
The chief justice has up to 15 days to decide whether to recommend that Demjanjuk be deported or that the full five-judge Supreme Court panel review whether a new trial is necessary.
The time is counted from a ruling Wednesday by a lower level of the Supreme Court, which upheld the attorney general's recommendation against a new trial.