Camp Commandant Gets Prison

The last known living World War II concentration camp commander was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison--the maximum punishment permitted--for war crimes committed more than half a century ago while running Croatia’s infamous Jasenovac camp.

Dinko Sakic, 78, was found guilty of carrying out or condoning the torture and slayings of inmates while in charge of the concentration camp in 1944.

Jasenovac was considered the worst of more than 20 camps run by the pro-Nazi puppet state of Croatia. Tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats died in the camp, described by Jewish groups as the “Auschwitz of the Balkans.”

“We hope that the sentence-- made 55 years after the events--will be a warning that all those who committed crimes in the near or distant past will not escape justice,” Chief Judge Drazen Tripalo said. “We also hope that the verdict will be a warning for the future.”