Artukovic’s Lawyers Say Official May Have Lied

Attorneys for accused war criminal Andrija Artukovic made a new attempt Tuesday to block his extradition to Yugoslavia, claiming that U.S. officials may have lied about their role in the proceedings.

The main target of the accusation is Neal Sher, who heads the U.S. Department of Justice’s office of special investigation, which is responsible for hunting down Nazi war criminals in this country.

In a motion filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Artukovic’s attorneys, Gary B. Fleischman and Michael Dacquisto, asserted that Sher “may well have committed perjury when he swore under oath that he had no part in urging Yugoslavia to act against Artukovic.”

The allegation was made in reference to Sher’s testimony Feb. 13 before U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. at a special hearing in Los Angeles. Sher testified that he had traveled to Yugoslavia to discuss the Artukovic case, but did not urge them to file new extradition proceedings.

Asked About Options

“I couldn’t tell them what to do. They wanted to know what the options were,” Sher said in response to questioning by Fleischman at the February hearing.

Fleischman said the question of who instituted the new extradition effort is crucial because he earlier had been turned down by Brown in his effort to have the proceedings dismissed because of a “prejudicial delay” between the 1984 action and an earlier extradition effort that failed in 1959.

The magistrate said the question of delay would have to be raised in Yugoslavia, unless it could be shown that the new extradition proceedings “had been instigated by the United States government.”

Fleischman and Dacquisto based their claim in the court documents filed Tuesday on statements they discovered in a book published earlier this year in Belgrade by Dr. Gojko Prodanic, a Yugoslav parliament official.

In the book titled, “Ustashi--Minister of Death,” Prodanic said he was visited in July, 1983, by an assistant attorney general from the United States, whom he did not identify by name.

“It was emphasized (to me) that the U.S. Justice Department wishes to actualize anew the extradition proceeding of Andrija Artukovic,” Prodanic is quoted as saying in the book, which the defense attorneys described as a semiofficial treatise of the Yugoslav government.

“Representatives of the American ministry proposed that the Yugoslav side submit a new request for the extradition of Artukovic,” Prodanic further stated in the book, according to documents filed by the defense lawyers.

Rad Artukovic, a Los Angeles businessman who is the son of the accused war criminal, said, “On the face of this, it looks like Mr. Sher intentionally misrepresented his role in the new extradition proceedings. It is shameful that the U.S. government would stoop to do something like this.”

Ask for Reopening

Artukovic’s attorneys are asking that the magistrate reopen the hearing and recall Sher for further testimony.

Sher could not be reached for comment in Washington, but Department of Justice spokesman John Russell said, “We will answer these charges in court at an appropriate time.”

Ten weeks after Sher’s testimony, Brown ruled that there was probable cause to believe that the 85-year-old Artukovic, who has successfully resisted efforts to return him to Yugoslavia during the 40 years he has lived in Seal Beach, was responsible for mass murders during World War II. The magistrate then issued an order that he be extradited.

Artukovic, suffering from a variety of physical and mental ailments, is now being held at a federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo., pending outcome of appeals.