-Caveat Lector-
"Charged with crimes against humanity in the deaths of 2000
concentration camp inmates during the Nazi puppet regime in Croatia, he
contends that the charges are based on files "falsified'' by postwar
Communist authorities in Yugoslavia."
Trial Opens for WWII Croatia Cmdr.
By SNJEZANA VUKIC
.c The Associated Press
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - Declaring his conscience is clear, the last known
living World War II concentration camp commander claimed Thursday that ``no
harm was done'' to the inmates of Croatia's notorious Jasenovac camp.
Dinko Sakic is charged with carrying out or allowing torture, random killings
and mass executions while running the camp in 1944. He maintained he
intervened to save several Jewish detainees at Jasenovac, one of more than 20
concentration camps run by the then-Nazi puppet state of Croatia.
``No one came to Jasenovac because of religion, race or political attitudes;
only those who actively worked against the Croatian state,'' Sakic said
during his first day of testimony.
Tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats perished in
the camp between 1941 and 1945.
Postwar documents also revealed names and photographs of children and elderly
people slain in the camp. Survivors testifying in the trial have emphasized
they were imprisoned only because of their nationality, or their opposition
to the fascists.
Sakic, 77, is charged with crimes against humanity in the deaths of about
2,000 inmates.
But he said the charges against him were based on files ``falsified'' by
postwar Yugoslav authorities. He stood by his claim that Jasenovac was a
``collective labor camp.''
In previous testimony, camp survivors recalled starvation, forced labor and
mass killings, some of them trembling as they described details of torture
and hangings.
Sakic claimed he released ``many Jews'' from the camp at the request from a
Croatian Jew, Ivan Heinrich, who, he said, ``knew that we respected the
inmates and that no harm was done to them.''
Sakic added that Heinrich later helped him settle in Argentina. He used the
three-hour testimony mainly to portray himself as an ardent Croatian patriot.
He also emphasized that he lived in Argentina for more than 50 years under
his real name, traveling often abroad without being sought by anyone.
Argentina eventually arrested him in April 1998 under pressure from Holocaust
survivors outraged by his claims about what happened at Jasenovac.
``But I wanted to come before a Croatian court,'' he said. ``Not to defend
myself, because ... my conscience is clear, but only to establish the
truth.''
Sakic, who was extradited to Croatia last June, defended himself without
being questioned either by the prosecution or the judge, as allowed under
Croatian law. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
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