ZAGREB, June 16 (Hina) - The trial against the former commander on an Ustashi concentration camp in Jasenovac, Dinko Sakic, continued Wednesday at the Zagreb County Court with presenting material evidence, that is, the reading of
documents presented the state attorney's office against Sakic. The documents are on more than 1,000 pages. Sakic's defence questioned the veracity and credibility of most of the documents. His attorney Branko Seric held the documents from the period of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH, 1941-1945), which mention Sakic's name, were falsified. He also said the documents of the national commission for establishing war crimes of occupying forces and their collaborators and documents made after World War II, had been drawn up for political purposes and there fore have no power of evidence. Not even memoirs made up of testimonies of survived camp prisoners are not credible evidence for the
ZAGREB, June 16 (Hina) - The trial against the former commander on
an Ustashi concentration camp in Jasenovac, Dinko Sakic, continued
Wednesday at the Zagreb County Court with presenting material
evidence, that is, the reading of documents presented the state
attorney's office against Sakic.
The documents are on more than 1,000 pages.
Sakic's defence questioned the veracity and credibility of most of
the documents.
His attorney Branko Seric held the documents from the period of the
Independent State of Croatia (NDH, 1941-1945), which mention
Sakic's name, were falsified.
He also said the documents of the national commission for
establishing war crimes of occupying forces and their
collaborators and documents made after World War II, had been drawn
up for political purposes and there fore have no power of evidence.
Not even memoirs made up of testimonies of survived camp prisoners
are not credible evidence for the defence, because the testimonies
had not been taken in a legally stipulated manner, Seric said.
The County State Attorney Radovan Santek dismissed criticisms from
the defence and said the national commission, established by the
National Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of
Croatia, had not been under political influence.
Seric expressed doubt in the credibility of an order on the
promotion of 23 Ustashi, in which, under item 20, "Ustashi
Lieutenant Dinko Sakic is being promoted into assistant commander
of the Stara Gradiska camp".
A charter "Sign of Fidelity" which Sakic received from the Ustashi
defence service, is also forged, Seric said.
Saying such a service had not existed in the NDH, Seric added Marko
Luburic's signature on the charter had been forged.
The defence also dismissed the veracity of a payment slip in Sakic's
name with 15,000 kuna for the first three months of 1945.
Sakic himself, Seric said, denied during a half-hour recess that he
had signed a memo informing the Stara Gradiska camp command about
the testimonies of the staff of the First battalion II Dorapuk (home
defence working regiment), whose family members were in
concentration camps.
In order to expedite the presentation of evidence, president of the
panel of judges, Drazen Tripalo, summarised all the documents.
The first part of the documents comprised numerous NDH regulations,
such as provisions on fighting violent crimes against the state,
the provision on the organisation and tasks of the Ustashi
supervisory service, and a provision of race affiliation which
determined who was considered Jewish and who a Gypsy in NDH.
According to this provision, dated April 1941, the then Interior
Ministry could "determine by itself whether a person is Jewish".
Read was also a provision about court-martials and provisional
court-martials, stipulating that a punishment, primarily capital
punishment, must be executed within three hours from the
sentencing.
There was no legal remedy against court-martial sentencing, and an
appeal did not postpone the execution of the sentence.
A provision about proceedings in cases of communist attacks and if
the perpetrators were not found, stipulated that ten communists had
to be executed for one Ustashi.
Read was also a provision about the sending of inappropriate and
dangerous persons to concentration and labour camps. The provision
said "all those undesirable persons and those who could endanger
the heritage of the liberation struggle of the Ustashi movement" be
sent to camps from three months to three years.
There was no legal remedy for such a decision, the provision said.
The provision on the protection of Arian blood and the honour of the
Croatian people, dating April 1941, marriage and sexual
intercourse between Jews and Arians was forbidden. A violation of
this provision was considered "a crime of desecration of the
race".
As a special group of documents, read were lists and documents about
camp prisoners, and certain NDH decisions regarding camps.
Included was a copy of an original list of 76 prisoners of the
Jasenovac camp and an index of a package room from the Jasenovac
concentration camp with a list of about 3,000 prisoners.
Beside certain names on the list, there are notes such as "died,
transferred to Stara Gradiska, released" and similar notes.
As evidence, read was also a food card for the Jasenovac labour
camp, dating December 1942, in the name of Ivan Pejnovic, at the
back of which there was a warning that the prisoner must safeguard
the card, otherwise "if he loses it, he loses the right to receive
food".
In a number of documents drafted by the national commission of 1944
to 1947, Sakic is listed as a "war criminal on the run".
In the documents Sakic is accused of numerous tortures, executions,
robbery and famishing of "several thousands of unidentified
inmates" as commander of the Jasenovac camp, but also for concrete
killings, such as public executions of prisoners.
The court also saw some 70 photographs of persons missing from the
camp during the war and immediately after the camp's eradication.
The photographs showed numerous Ustashi officials and delegations
visiting the camp, camp facilities, the prisoners working, dead
bodies of prisoners and destroyed camp facilities.
The defence's presentation of evidence concluded with the reading
of Sakic's interview to reporter Aleksa Crnjakovic in Argentina.
In the interview, published in the "Panorama" weekly in February
1995, Sakic, speaking about his role in the NDH and his life after
the war, said he was proud of his past and everything he had done,
adding he was not remorseful for his acts, as he "fought for his
country and defended Croatian interests".
Dismissing the claim that the NDH had been a fascist creation, Sakic
stressed in the interview the camp had been a legal, law-based
institution.
"It was not a sanatorium nor a place of torture, as the Serbs wish to
depict it," he said, adding nobody had been placed in the camp for
their religious, national or racial affiliation.
According to him, only enemies of the NDH had been placed in the
camp.
Sakic said there had been no mass executions.
"Death was of natural causes and normal," Sakic said.
Criticising the content and evidential strength of the interview,
Seric said many instances had been freely interpreted and some had
been taken out of context.
Stressing the interview had not been authorised by Sakic, Seric
said his client did not "stand behind the interview".
The trial will continue on June 24, when Sakic will present his
defence. Until that time, the Supreme Court should have reached a
decision on an appeal by the defence regarding last week's decision
of the panel of judges about an extension of Sakic's detention.
(hina) lml jn