In the Nation

CLEVELAND - Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk's bid to regain his U.S. citizenship was denied Tuesday by a judge who said he had lied about where he was during World War II.

U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster rejected the retired autoworker's citizenship claim, which was based on newly discovered documents, including one suggesting an incriminating document was a Soviet fraud.

"John Demjanjuk has admitted that he willfully lied about his whereabouts during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain entry to the United States," the judge wrote. Demjanjuk was convicted by a German court that found he had been a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland. He was sentenced to five years in prison. - AP

DETROIT - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian student who pleaded guilty against the advice of his standby lawyer to trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009, wants a new lawyer.

He told U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds in a letter that arrived Monday that Detroit criminal lawyer Anthony Chambers does not visit him and has failed to provide documents he requested for his forthcoming sentencing.

He said Chambers' associates, who have visited him, have lied to him. He asked Edmunds to appoint a Muslim lawyer. She set a hearing on the request for Jan. 6. He is to be sentenced Jan. 19.

"I think he is a troubled young man who is misguided and confused," Chambers said. ". . . He's having regrets over what I would consider a bad decision" to plead guilty. - Detroit Free Press

CLEVELAND - Twelve members of a breakaway Amish group were charged with federal hate crimes in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in eastern Ohio farm country, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.

The seven-count indictment against Sam Mullet and 11 relatives or members of his group include charges of conspiracy, assault, and evidence tampering in what prosecutors say were hate crimes motivated by religious differences.

Mullet and six of the suspects have been held without bond since their arrests in FBI raids Nov. 23 at the Mullet compound near Steubenville in eastern Ohio. The hair and beard cutting is considered deeply offensive in Amish culture. - AP

WASHINGTON - The House Ethics Committee concluded that Rep. Don Young (R., Alaska) did not receive improper donations to a legal defense fund. It said Tuesday that 12 corporations owned and operated by the same seven people each made the maximum $5,000 contribution - for a total of $60,000.

The panel said it was allowed because each company was a distinct legal entity. But it said it is revising the rules, starting next year, to impose new contribution limits on owners who run multiple companies. - AP