ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - Croatia is dissatisfied and disappointed with the way The New York Times reported about the death of the infamous "Chetnik duke" and a war criminal, priest Momcilo Djujic, who died on Saturday in a hospital in
San Diego, California, the Croatian Justice Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - Croatia is dissatisfied and disappointed
with the way The New York Times reported about the death of the
infamous "Chetnik duke" and a war criminal, priest Momcilo Djujic,
who died on Saturday in a hospital in San Diego, California, the
Croatian Justice Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. #L#
In an article written by David Binder, Djujic is already in the
headline described as a priest and a warrior. Incredible eulogies
are said about his alleged heroism and it is claimed that he was the
leader of the armed resistance to the Nazi Germany and the Axis
forces.
The Ministry warns that the data regarding the biography of the
World War II criminal, presented in the article, are false.
Djujic was the commander of the notorious Chetnik Dinara division
and was certainly the most prominent Serb political emigrant.
Due to his crimes, the former Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia sought his extradition in 1988, repeating the
extradition request several times after 1988.
Croatian Justice Minister Zvonimir Separovic on May 28, 1999
submitted the request with the competent body of the United States,
including an extensive documentation with more than 1,000 pages of
evidence, on the basis of proceedings conducted at the Sibenik
County Court. Regretfully, all attempts to obtain his extradition
were unsuccessful, the statement said.
The Croatian judicial bodies had initiated criminal proceedings
against Momcilo Djujic on suspicion that since July 1941 he had
organised Chetnik units in the area of Mt Dinara, which terrorised
the population in southern Croatia, western Bosnia, and elsewhere
under the command of war criminal Draza Mihajlovic and the
protection of Italian and German occupying forces.
According to the indictment, violating the international law
during the war for criminal reasons, religious and ethnic hatred,
and intolerance, Djujic conducted forced mobilisation into Chetnik
units, and together with other Chetniks burned and pillaged
villages, and tortured and carried out mass executions of their
residents. In the areas of Knin, Vrlika, Sinj, Sibenik, Otocac, and
Korenica in southern Croatia, Djujic's units destroyed a number of
villages and executed more than 1,500 people.
In line with Djujic's orders, the Chetniks commanded by Mane Rokvic
in late 1942 and early 1943 carried out mass executions of Croat
civilians in the villages of Gata, Zvecanje, Ostrovica, Vrlika and
elsewhere. More than 230 people - mostly children, the elderly and
women were executed in the most cruel way - their throats were slit
or they were thrown into burning houses alive or killed in other
most cruel ways.
The article published in The New York Times on Monday has caused
disapproval and disgust among the Croatian public and the media.
One of the public figures who reacted to the article is the
president of the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters of Croatia,
Ivan Fumic.
(hina) jn rml ,