Artukovic’s Son Challenges U.S. to Admit Wrongful Extradition

Radoslav Artukovic, son of convicted Nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic, who died recently in a Yugoslav prison, challenged U.S. officials Friday to admit that they wrongly extradited his father.

In a 135-page report submitted to the Justice Department, Artukovic said the department used fraudulent evidence to send his father, who had lived in Seal Beach, to face a “sham trial” in Yugoslavia two years ago.

The elder Artukovic died last month at age 88 while awaiting execution.

“The only way the U.S. government could get him was through fraud,” Artukovic told a press conference here before leaving for Los Angeles to join a federal courthouse vigil in honor of his father.

Andrija Artukovic, who was a cabinet minister in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, was called “Butcher of the Balkans” by the Yugoslav government and accused of ordering the deaths of thousands of people. During his trial, he was described as an overseer of a network of concentration camps.

Rad Artukovic, 39, said his father was minister of the interior, had no military responsibilities and ordered no deaths.

The son repeated his allegation that the chief witness against his father had told a series of lies and was “a typical, coached, Communist witness.”

Artukovic said in the report that both his father’s extradition and the trial in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, relied mainly on false testimony from Bajro Avdic, a man who said he had been a military escort for his father.

The report said Avdic was not an escort and was not in the places he said he had been when atrocities allegedly occurred. It also said Avdic made up the killings attributed to Artukovic.

“I ask the Justice Department to go into court and revoke the order they obtained through fraud,” Artukovic said, accusing U.S. officials of collusion with the Communist government in Yugoslavia.

He also said his father was not mentally competent to stand trial. U.S. officials had declared him senile and legally blind when he was extradited.

Tom Stewart, spokesman for the Justice Department’s criminal division, said a copy of Artukovic’s report had been received by the Office of Special Investigations and was being reviewed by investigators who handle allegations of war crimes.

“He’s done a marvelous job of defending his father’s reputation, but the matter was dealt with in the courts,” Stewart said.

Artukovic said he hopes for a renunciation of the extradition to invalidate the Yugoslav trial. He worked for two years to research the report. He is sending copies to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A La Puente man faces deportation on charges of war atrocities. (Page 10.)