Court Orders Artukovic Sent to Yugoslavia

Accused war criminal Andrija Artukovic, charged with the slaughter of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia during World War II, was ordered by a Los Angeles federal magistrate Monday to be returned to Yugoslavia to face trial on a single count of murder.

The order by U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. was only the first step in what is expected to be a lengthy series of proceedings in the United States before the 85-year-old Artukovic can actually be extradited on the Yugoslav war crimes charge.

Artukovic, who came to the United States on a false passport in 1948 and has lived since in the Orange County community of Seal Beach, was minister of the interior of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia during World War II.

While Brown focused only on one specific accusation of murder in his order Monday, he gave the government of Yugoslavia 60 days in which to amend its murder complaint to include several other charges of Artukovic’s direct involvement in alleged atrocities.

Mental Confusion

Artukovic, who is legally blind and suffers a heart ailment and periods of mental confusion associated with his age, was not in the courtroom as Brown announced his ruling.

After any amendments to the Yugoslav murder indictment against Artukovic, the next formal step in the extradition process will be the signing of a certificate of extraditability by Brown, to be forwarded to Secretary of State George P. Shultz for a decision on whether to actually send Artukovic to Yugoslavia.

Artukovic’s attorneys will have an additional 60 days, however, in which to prepare an appeal of Brown’s order. Such an appeal would be heard first by Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles. If he upholds Brown’s ruling, Artukovic’s lawyers plan an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We believe the matter will take upwards of two years to be decided, even if it doesn’t end up before the Supreme Court,” Gary B. Fleischman, lead defense attorney for Artukovic, said after Brown’s ruling.

“Despite today’s ruling, the chances of him ever actually going back to Yugoslavia are very, very remote,” Fleischman said.

Brown’s ruling came after an earlier finding by the magistrate that there were flaws in the Yugoslav murder indictment that raised the prospect that it might not be possible to legally order his extradition despite Brown’s opinion that there was “substantial probable cause” to believe that Artukovic had been involved in the mass murder of thousands during World War II.

Question Resolved

The magistrate resolved the problem that he had raised Friday by finding that the Yugoslav indictment had made specific reference to one murder that was alleged in an affidavit attached to it.

In a 1952 affidavit, a former Croatian police official named Franjo Truhar testified that Artukovic was personally responsible for the murder of Jesa Vidic in a Croatian concentration camp in 1941. Truhar said Artukovic ordered Vidic’s death despite a bribe attempt by Vidic’s wife of 150 acres of land in exchange for her husband’s freedom.

After Monday’s ruling, U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner called a news conference to praise Brown’s decision. He said he is optimistic that the Yugoslav government would amend its indictment to add additional murder charges against Artukovic in the next two months.

“We don’t have any serious concern that Mr. Artukovic will get anything other than a fair trial in Yugoslavia,” Bonner said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. David Nimmer, who prosecuted the case with Justice Department attorneys Murray Stein and Ronnie L. Edelman, called Brown’s decision a victory both for Yugoslavia and the United States.

‘Record Set Straight’

“Since Andrija Artukovic came to the United States in 1948, he has been the subject of almost continuous litigation in U.S. courts,” said Nimmer. “Today the record has been set straight. Magistrate Brown has ruled that he was almost definitely responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

While some federal officials questioned Fleischman’s estimate that the appeal process will take as long as two years, Nimmer avoided any prediction on when Artukovic might actually be returned to Yugoslavia if his appeals are denied.

“There are so many variables that it’s impossible to calculate,” he said. “Only time will tell.”

The ruling came on the fifth day of an extradition hearing that stretched over several weeks, partly because of the problem of determining when Artukovic was competent to take part in the proceedings and when his mental condition precluded his presence in court.

Issue of Competence

An earlier ruling by Brown had established that Artukovic was competent on some days and incompetent on others.

Artukovic, who has been held in federal custody without bail at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Long Beach since his arrest Nov. 14, was examined by a Navy doctor on each of the preceding days of the hearing to determine his mental competence.

On the final day of the hearing, however, Fleischman had waived his client’s presence in the courtroom. Artukovic was notified of the ruling by his wife, Anna, and his son, Rad. They said he looked puzzled and did not appear to understand what they were telling him.

“He knew that he had lost something, but he didn’t know what,” said Rad Artukovic.

Fleischman and Michael Dacquisto, another of Artukovic’s lawyers, said Brown’s rulings on mental competency will be one of the major issues on appeal.

Outside the courtroom, Artukovic’s Croatian supporters denounced the decision and Jewish leaders praised it.

Croation Viewpoint

“It’s so wishy-washy I can’t believe it,” said Mari Ann Levic, who said she is a Croatian survivor of Communist persecution in Yugoslavia. “To send that man back to a Communist court is unbelievable.”

“I am very pleased,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. “I was a little worried on Friday. It’s the last hurrah for Artukovic. From here on, the government will act swiftly. Today’s decision was of great significance.

“This sends a clear message to Nazi war criminals wherever they may be that no matter how long it takes they will be brought to the bar of justice,” Hier added. “While he is only being extradited on one count, the magistrate made it clear that this is a man responsible for the murder of many, many others.”

Artukovic has been accused of complicity in as many as 770,000 murders of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies during the 1940s in some unofficial accounts of the Croatian civil war that coincided with the outbreak of World War II. The Yugoslav indictment itself charged several thousand murders, but did not give an overall estimate of the total killed.

Estimates Disputed

Charles McAdams, an expert on Croatian history who testified for Artukovic, has contended that the death figures have been exaggerated by the Communist press of Yugoslavia. He said one official Yugoslav estimate in the 1960s was that 65,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies died in Croatian prison camps during World War II and that 185,000 people died in Croatia from all causes during that same period.

Artukovic’s alleged Nazi sympathies were disputed in the extradition hearings. His lawyers contended he was a Croatian nationalist who had been jailed by the Nazis before the war. The prosecution said the Nazis flew him to Croatia from Berlin after setting up the Croatian puppet government.

Artukovic will remain at the Naval Hospital in Long Beach, Brown ordered. In addition to the extradition charges against him, he faces a deportation hearing in Los Angeles starting April 9. The deportation effort was begun in early 1984 before Yugoslavia made its extradition request.

Yugoslavia first attempted to extradite Artukovic in 1951, but a U.S. commissioner rejected the request on grounds that there was not sufficient proof of Artukovic’s alleged crimes. An earlier U.S. attempt at deportation also failed.