"It is true that we have received a request for the extradition of Milivoj Asner, but we cannot act upon it because he is an Austrian citizen and under the Austrian law Austrian citizens cannot be extradited to other countries," Austrian Justice Ministry spokesman Christoph Poechinger told Hina in Vienna on Thursday.
Poechinger said that the Austrian ministry had received a large amount of documents which were now being examined to determine if there were reasonable grounds for suspicion. He added that the material would be translated and that an investigation would follow.
The spokesman said that charges would be pressed possibly already this year provided that reasonable grounds for suspicion were established.
The documentation in the Asner case is based on research into the history of the Jewish community in Pozega conducted by an amateur historian from Pozega, Alen Budaj, as part of the operation "Last Chance", a campaign launched by the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre to hunt down suspected Nazi war criminals still escaping justice.