Conversion from wikimedia to html failed with "source" error

[MSardelich]

I am trying to convert the official wikimedia dump of page "Academy Award", rendered to html here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Awards

It fails with error:
pandoc:
Error:
"source" (line 351, column 1):
unexpected "<"
expecting "|-" or "|}"

A closer look reveals that the error occurs when trying to convert a table with an html comment inside. The table is:

 {| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|-
! data-sort-type="number" style="width:180px;"|Ceremony
! style="width:150px;"|Date
! style="width:280px;"|Best Picture winner
! style="width:180px;"|Length of ceremony<!-- Should be specified as {{sort|NNN|X hours, Y minutes}}, with NNN being the length in total minutes [(X*60)+Y] zero-padded to 3 digits if necessary. X and Y should *NOT* be zero-padded. -->
! style="width:150px;"|Number of viewers
! style="width:080px;"|Rating
! style="width:200px;"|Host(s)<!-- DO NOT use "rowspan" in this column, even when the same host continues from year to year (i.e., Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal); it may lead to sort and/or display issues in the venue column (i.e., venue may sort as blank instead of actual value, bar separating different venues may not appear in table). -->
! style="width:300px;"|Venue<!-- The "rowspan" parameter should be used ONLY in this column. -->
|-
| [[1st Academy Awards]] || 16 May 1929 || ''[[Wings (film)|Wings]]'' || {{sort|015|0 hours, 15 minutes}} || 270 || — || {{nowrap|[[Douglas Fairbanks]],}} {{nowrap|[[William C. deMille]]}} || [[Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel]]
|-
| [[87th Academy Awards]] || 22 February 2015 <ref name="oscars.org"/> || TBA || TBA || TBA || TBA || TBA
|-
! style="width:180px;"|Ceremony
! style="width:150px;"|Date
! style="width:280px;"|Best Picture winner
! style="width:180px;"|Length of ceremony
! style="width:150px;"|Number of viewers
! style="width:080px;"|Rating
! style="width:200px;"|Host(s)
! style="width:300px;"|Venue
|-
<!-- 84th already mentioned in second paragraph from the top, not included in this table of _past_ ceremonies until after the ceremony. -->
|}

If we omit the comment line, pandoc converts as expected : -). (btw, pandoc is the best library around!)
Unfortunately, it does not work with the html comment, even if it is placed in a new line.

I know that it is not a common practice to insert this html comments in the middle of a table, but some wikipedia authors are using it :-(

I decided to report it as an issue.

Thanks, Marcelo.