Dinko Sakic's Portfolio
From the Press
Srpska Mreza

ZAGREB - Israel supports Croatia's wish to extradite a former World War II concentration camp commander living in Argentina, a visiting Israeli official said Wednesday.

``The Israeli government fully supports the ... Croatian government in asking for extradition of (Dinko) Sakic so that he will be put on trial in Croatia,'' the director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Eytan Bentsur, said in Zagreb.

However, the Croatian Foreign Ministry said it had not yet formally asked for Sakic, 76, to be extradited to Croatia to face trial on war crimes charges.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ivo Sanader said earlier he had told Bentsur that Croatia had officially asked Argentina to extradite Sakic.

However the ministry spokesman later said Sanader had merely told Bentsur of Croatia's readiness to demand Sakic's extradition.

``Croatia will demand his extradition as soon as possible, that is when all formal conditions have been met,'' spokesman Zeljko Trkanjac told Reuters.

``What mattered to the Israeli side is our readiness to demand extradition, our decision to do it. Here in Croatia we are actively working on this.''

Croatia declared its readiness to try Sakic for war crimes after he discussed his role as commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia from 1942 to 1944 on Argentine television.

Croatia was then under the fascist rule of the Ustasha regime, a puppet of Adolf Hitler's Nazis, and Jasenovac became known as the ``Auschwitz of the Balkans.''

The Simon Wiesenthal center, which hunts Nazi war criminals, says 600,000 people perished in the camp but independent Croatian estimates put the toll at 85,000.

As Sakic was never formally charged with war crimes after World War II, the Croatian authorities have to collect enough evidence to form a case against him.

Argentine President Carlos Menem has already asked the authorities to arrest Sakic, who has been living in the country for 50 years, but so far they have not done so.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman wants Sakic's trial to be ``prompt, efficient and open'' and has ordered all relevant bodies in Croatia to initiate proceedings for his extradition.

Present-day Croatia, which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 when the communist federation fell apart, has been criticized for an often ambiguous stance to its past.

A proposal by Tudjman to turn Jasenovac into a memorial for all World War II victims by reburying Ustasha members alongside their victims to promote ``Croatian reconciliation'' seems to have been shelved following heavy Western pressure.

The government formally apologized last August to the Jewish people for crimes committed by the Ustasha regime after which Croatia established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic will visit Israel in May, when the two sides should sign several bilateral agreements to boost economic and other ties.

``There is also an invitation to president Tudjman to visit Israel and this visit is being prepared,'' Sanader said.