Ryan painted a picture of a scrupulous Justice Department that paid great attention to detail, recounting Office of Special Investigations policies that forced witnesses to pick out alleged Nazis from spreads of photos and allowed Demjanjuk's attorneys to travel at government expense.

"The government has to turn square corners," Ryan said. "We were the Department of Justice."

But Ryan retreated from previous public statements he had made about the Office of Special Investigation's policy for handling evidence.

Ryan had said publicly that all exonerating evidence should be handed over to defendants. But on Friday, he said he never put that policy in writing and could not remember how or if he had communicated his feelings about evidence to Office of Special Investigations prosecutors.

"The policy was to follow the federal rules closely," said Ryan, adding that mitigating evidence should be turned over even if it is inadmissible and not asked for by the defendants. "Recently, I have been unable to recall how, if and when I communicated those views to my colleagues."

Patty Merkay Stenler, a lawyer from the Justice Department, also questioned Ryan.

Ryan's attorney, Richard Glovsky, had been previously prohibited from asking questions or making objections, and he was forced to watch unhappily from the jury box.

The unusual hearing seemed disorganized at times. Wiseman interrupted half a dozen times to ask his own questions, and the cantankerous Tennessean even objected to a questions, posed by Stenler--a privilege commonly reserved for attorneys.

Attorneys for other former Justice lawyers crowded the gallery, and one, representing Parker, launched an objection to Ryan's testimony.

It was left to Wiseman to conclude the proceeding. "I think," he said, "we got a credibility issue.