Berlin  - Germany is expecting the United States to simply expel John Demjanjuk, 89, a stateless man accused of being an accessory to 29,000 Nazi death camp murders, without going through any extradition procedure, an official said in Berlin Wednesday.

A German news website, Spiegel Online, had earlier quoted Ulrich Busch, a German lawyer representing Demjanjuk, demanding that German formally apply for Demjanjuk's extradition from the United States.

Munich prosecutors have simply issued a warrant for his arrest and plan to indict him after his arrival. The United States is eager to deport him after reversing his naturalization as a US citizen because of the allegations.

Extradition is a drawn-out legal procedure supervised by judges, which can take weeks or months. Deportation is an executive act by government can happen almost instantly if courts do not interrupt it.

In Berlin, a Justice Ministry spokesman told the German Press Agency dpa that the extradition option was a possibility, but Berlin was counting on Demjanjuk being simply deported. No letter from Busch demanding the extradition route had been received yet.

Demjanjuk was acquitted on appeal in 1993 by the Israeli Supreme Court of being a guard at Nazis' Treblinka death camp. German investigators say they now have proof he worked at a different Nazi camp, Sobibor, in 1943, helping to murder
29,000 inmates.

Demjanjuk's US lawyer has filed an appeal against his deportation. This is still pending before the US Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk lived in Germany as a refugee after the Second World War. In 1952, he anglicized his first name, Ivan, to John and moved to the United States where he became a car worker.(dpa)