BERLIN — John Demjanjuk, a retired U.S. autoworker who was convicted of being a guard at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp despite maintaining over three decades that he had been mistaken for someone else, died Saturday. He was 91.

Demjanjuk, convicted in May of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison, died a free man in a nursing home in the southern Bavarian town of Bad Feilnbach. He had been released pending his appeal.

His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said in Ohio that his father died in the night of natural causes. Demjanjuk had terminal bone marrow disease, chronic kidney disease and other ailments.

It was not yet known whether he would be brought back to the U.S. for burial.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk steadfastly denied any involvement in the Nazi Holocaust since the first accusations were levied against him more than 30 years ago.

“My father fell asleep with the Lord as a victim and survivor of Soviet and German brutality since childhood,” Demjanjuk Jr. said. “He loved life, family and humanity. History will show Germany used him as a scapegoat to blame helpless Ukrainian POWs for the deeds of Nazi Germans.”