Artukovic Sentenced to Die for War Crimes : Sits Impassively as Yugoslav Court Announces Conviction on 4 Murder Counts; Appeals Likely

Andrija Artukovic was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to death for war crimes committed as interior minister of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia.

Artukovic, 86, sat impassively as his conviction and death sentence were announced in District Court. He made no attempt to speak and showed no emotion as the presiding judge, Milko Gajski, ordered two guards to “please take the accused out of the courtroom.”

The execution, according to a court official, would be carried out by a police firing squad. If it is carried out, it will be the first execution in Yugoslavia of a person over age 70 since the wartime mass executions charged to Artukovic, the official said.

Artukovic’s attorneys have not said so, but they are expected to make three appeals as permitted under Yugoslav law. The first, to the Supreme Court of Croatia, could come as early as next month, court officials said. If it fails, there will be a second appeal, to the federal Supreme Court in Belgrade. Finally, Artukovic can seek clemency from the eight-man presidency of Yugoslavia.

Artukovic, who had lived in the United States since 1948, was extradited in February to stand trial. He was found guilty on four specific charges of murder, involving in one instance an individual, and in the others hundreds of men, women and children.

As required by Yugoslav law, the trial focused on the four specific charges, but in its verdict, the two-judge, three-juror court also found him responsible for running two dozen concentration camps where 700,000 to 900,000 Serbians, Jews, Gypsies and other prisoners were tortured and slaughtered in the years 1941 to 1945.

At that time Artukovic was minister of the interior, justice and religion in the “independent state of Croatia” established by Nazi Germany.

Judge Gajski reviewed and dismissed each of the arguments put forth by Artukovic’s three defense lawyers. He said the prosecutor, Ivanka Pintar-Gajer, had proved that Artukovic “was the master of life and death of all of the people” of the wartime Nazi puppet state.

Artukovic’s lawyers had sought to show that he was too ill and senile to stand trial, that the main witness to three of the four crimes in the indictment was unreliable and that the 1929 criminal code of Yugoslavia contains a statute of limitations under which Artukovic was qualified for release.

Pleads Ignorance

Throughout the trial, Artukovic insisted that he was ignorant of what took place in the concentration camps. He said he had no recollection of any of the crimes charged to him. He acknowledged knowing of the camps but said he had been an administrator and had no knowledge of atrocities committed there.

In reading the verdict, Judge Gajski derided Artukovic’s ability to remember the positive events of his life in great detail while pleading that he could not remember the incriminating events. The judge accused Artukovic of being “rationally selective in his memory” and added that “he remembers much in great detail . . . yet he doesn’t remember anything of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies from 1941 to 1945.”

The question of Artukovic’s fitness to be on trial came up repeatedly, and on each occasion the court rejected a request that he be reexamined by psychiatrists. In the verdict, Gajski pointed out that a panel of three physicians had examined the defendant every morning and observed him at each session of the trial and consistently declared him fit.

Artukovic’s son, Radoslav, was informed of his father’s conviction and sentencing early Wednesday morning by phone at his Seal Beach, Calif., home, and he later told a news conference that the verdict “stinks.”

The news itself “was kind of an anti-climax for me,” said Artukovic, a 37-year-old stockbroker who attended part of the monthlong trial. “What happened there is not a criminal trial as you and I know it . . . but a political show trial.” The result, he said, was “a hollow conviction, a Communist sham trial.”

“The Yugoslav government did not allow us to put on a defense,” charged the son, who says he has scores of documents that his father’s attorneys were not allowed to present.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles, which had long urged Artukovic’s extradition, said in a prepared statement Wednesday that “justice was done and that it is preposterous to claim, as the defense claims that they haven’t proven any personal crimes against Artukovic. Hitler and Himmler didn’t commit any personal crimes, and they are regarded as the world’s most vicious killers. The question is, who was responsible for the government policies, and Artukovic as minister of the interior was directly responsible for those crimes.”

Kept Same Appearance

On Wednesday in the Zagreb courtroom, Artukovic was dressed as usual in a tieless, open-collared white shirt and a gray suit with the jacket unbuttoned. He assumed the same position in the bulletproof glass enclosure that he had held for hours on end throughout the trial’s 19 daily sessions: head back, mouth slightly open, right leg crossed over left knee, hands clasped over his abdomen.

Most of the leaders of the Nazi regime in Croatia fled at the end of the war, some of them with the help of sympathetic Roman Catholic clergymen. All except Artukovic are believed to have died or been assassinated in exile.

Artukovic made his way into the United States with a false passport under the name of Alojz Anich and lived in Southern California until his extradition. In the early 1950s, Yugoslavia tried without success to have him extradited when he pleaded special status as a political refugee from communism. According to authorities on the subject, he is the highest-ranking accused war criminal to be given refuge in the United States.

“This trial, for which all of us waited such a long time, is a victory for justice,” Judge Gajski said.

Times staff writer Patt Morrison, in Los Angeles, contributed to this story.