Rojnica and Asner, both 80 years old, live in Argentina and Austria respectively and are not even trying to hide, Zuroff said, adding that he had urged Croatian authorities and prosecution to launch procedure to seek their extradition and put them on trial.
After meeting Serbian President Boris Tadic and representatives of the Justice Ministry and the Serbian Orthodox Church, Zuroff told reporters he was an optimist and expected the Serbian judiciary to request Argentina to transfer Rojnica and Austria to hand over Asner.
Rojnica, a former Ustasha commander in Dubrovnik, is responsible for crimes against hundreds of local Serbs, Jews and Roma, while Asner is linked to crimes in Slavonska Pozega and is held responsible for sending people to the Ustasha-run concentration camp Jasenovac, according to data collected by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre that were presented at the news conference.
Since Serbs too were the victims, Serbia has the right to demand that the two men be put on trial in Belgrade despite the fact that they are citizens of other countries, Zuroff said, adding that Serbia could do this as one of the successor countries to the former Yugoslavia, which declared the two men war criminals.
Zuroff said that he had submitted to Croatian State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic extensive documentation on the Rojnica case, but that nothing had been done yet. In September 2005 Croatia requested Asner's extradition from Austria, he said, adding that Bajic had told him on several occasions that this case was still being worked on.
Zuroff went on to say that the talks with officials in Belgrade also focused on the arrest of some other Ustasha war criminals, however, he could not disclose their number or identity due to security reasons but would release more details in a few weeks.
The press in Belgrade were also told that Zuroff had been heading for four years the project "Last Chance", a campaign to track down World War II criminals which includes more than 1,000 investigations in 17 countries all over the world. Every useful piece of information carries a reward of USD10,000.