Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Nazi-hunting Wiesenthal Centre, arrived in Zagreb in July 1998 to find the city gripped by a celebratory frenzy as Croatia beat Germany in the quarter-finals of the football World Cup in France and fans took to the streets to party into the night.
“After the match, we went out on the street. I see a group of seven young men. I have a yarmulke on my head,” recalled Zuroff, who was visiting Zagreb to meet state officials about the case against a man called Dinko Sakic.
“They’re weaving some sort of a flag… and they were yelling: ‘Dinko, Sakic, Dinko, Sakic.’ I was in shock,” he said.
Sakic, the last surviving World War II concentration camp commander, had landed in Zagreb just a couple of weeks earlier, on June 18, 1998, after being extradited from Argentina, where he had lived in freedom since the 1940s.
On June 19, Sakic appeared before an investigative judge at Zagreb county court. The questioning finished quickly because Sakic, the former commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, which was run by the fascist Ustasa movement, was defending himself by remaining silent.
In December 1998, the state attorney’s office indicted Sakic for crimes against civilians committed during the time he was camp commander at Jasenovac between April and November 1944. He was accused of personally carrying out executions during the same period.
The opening of the trial on March 15, 1999 was attended by around 70 reporters and representatives of some foreign embassies in Zagreb.
After state attorneys read out the indictment, presiding judge Drazen Tripalo asked Sakic how he pleaded.
“I absolutely don’t feel guilty of any of incriminating deeds, and my conscience is peaceful,” he responded.
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