German prosecutors charged suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk with helping to kill nearly 28,000 Jews in World War Two, setting the stage for what may be Germany's last big Nazi war crimes trial. 

 "State prosecutors in Munich have today charged the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk as an accessory to murder in a total of 27,900 cases," prosecutors said in a statement.

 
Nazi hunters hailed the announcement, which follows years of legal arguments over the wartime activities of Kiev-born Demjanjuk, who denies any role in the Holocaust.
 
Prosecutors said the long-time Ohio resident, who has been held in a jail in southern Germany since May 12 after he was deported from the United States, would be tried in a Munich court, but did not specify when.
 
Lawyers for the prosecution and the defence have previously said autumn could be a feasible start date.
 
The retired car factory worker tops the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of its 10 most-wanted suspected war criminals. It says Demjanjuk pushed men, women and children into gas chambers at the Sobibor death camp in what is today Poland.
 
"This is a milestone on the way to finally achieving justice," said Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem and a leading Nazi hunter.
 
"A trial of this sort sends a very important message, that even many years after the crimes were committed, it is still possible to achieve justice."
 
Demjanjuk has said he was drafted into the Soviet army in 1941, became a German prisoner of war a year later and served at German prison camps until 1944. He immigrated to the United States in 1951 and became a naturalised citizen in 1958.
 
Medical experts deemed Demjanjuk fit to stand trial despite protestations from his family that he is too frail.