Berlin  - Alleged war criminal John Demjanjuk appealed Friday to Germany's highest court to stop his trial in Munich next month.

Lawyer Ulrich Busch told the German Press Agency he had applied to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlruhe for an injunction to halt proceedings and free former Ohio resident Demjanuk, 89.

Demjanjuk is accused of being an accessory to the murder of tens of thousands of Jews at a Nazi death camp.

Busch said Germany had no legal authority to try Demjanjuk and in any case his client had already spent more than seven years in prison in Israel on related charges.

"He won't be given a single day longer than that to serve," Busch told dpa.

"A higher sentence is not to be expected now," Busch told the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel earlier. "Because the Israeli custody must be factored in, the state's right to impose punishment no longer applies."

Busch added that given his age, it was unlikely Demjanjuk would survive the trial, which is due to begin November 30 and is likely to be Germany's last major war-crimes trial dating from the Nazi era.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was deported from the United States in May to stand trial in Munich on charges of accessory to the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Prosecutors allege he served as a guard at the camp.

In Israel he was charged with serving as a death camp guard at Treblinka, but appeal judges later concluded that his identification as a brutal guard nicknamed Ivan the Terrible was probably mistaken.

The Munich court has set down 35 hearing days up to May 6 next year. Demjanjuk, who is stateless, is being kept at Stadelheim prison in Munich. Germany says it has jurisdiction in the case because some of the Jews killed at Sobibor were German citizens.  dpa