Washington - US federal agents took an accused Nazi war criminal into custody on Tuesday for his pending deportation to Germany on charges connected to his time as a guard at a concentration camp. The agents removed John Demjanjuk, 89, from his suburban Cleveland home in the state of Ohio. Contacted by telephone, Demjanjuk's lawyer, John Broadley, could not confirm when his client will arrive in Germany.

"I have no idea what they are planning to do with him," Broadley said, adding that he assumes "they will be trying to bundle him on a plane as soon as possible to get him out of the jurisdiction of the American courts."

German authorities allege that the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, then 23, worked from March to September 1943 as a guard in Poland at Sobibor concentration camp, where at least 29,000 Jews were executed. Prosecutors in Munich issued an arrest warrant for him three weeks ago.

A US Justice Department spokeswoman would not comment on Demjanjuk's status.

"I know there are media reports out right now about Demjanjuk, however the department cannot comment on the timing of any possible removal at this time," Laura E Sweeney said.

Demjanjuk's lawyers lost a last minute appeal in court to block his deportation last week. The US Board of Immigration Appeals subsequently cleared the move.

Broadley had argued that his client is bedridden and too ill to be transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

Following World War II Demjanjuk lived in Germany as a refugee until 1952 when he changed his first name from Ivan to John and moved to the United States.

Demjanjuk was acquitted in 1993 by the Israeli Supreme Court of charges that he worked at a different death camp, Treblinka, saving him from the death sentence of a lower court in Israel.(dpa)