Artukovic’s Son Challenges U.S. Officials to Admit Error

The son of a man who lived nearly 40 years in the United States and then died in a prison in Yugoslavia after being convicted of Nazi war crimes challenged U.S. officials Friday to admit that they wrongly extradited his father to a Communist court.

Rad Artukovic, in a 135-page report submitted to the U.S. Justice Department, said the department used fraudulent evidence to send his father, Andrija Artukovic, to face a “sham trial” in Yugoslavia two years ago. The elder Artukovic died last month at age 88 while awaiting execution in a Yugoslav prison.

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

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.

Andrija Artukovic, who was a cabinet minister in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, was called the “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 grisly network of concentration camps.

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

Artukovic, who lives in Seal Beach, Calif., said in the report that both his father’s extradition and the trial in Yugoslavia relied mainly on false testimony from Bajro Avdic, a man who claimed to have been a military escort for his father. The report said Avdic was not an escort and was not in the places he claimed to be when atrocities allegedly occurred. It also claims he made up the killings attributed to Artukovic.