WAR CRIMINAL SAKIC'S VERDICT WATERSHED - SAYS B'NAI B'RITH PRESIDENT

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Hina) - The maximum penalty verdict against Croatian World War Two criminal Dinko Sakic marks a watershed in trials against accused WW2 criminals, the president of Jewish organisation B'nai B'rith Richard Heideman said in Washington on Monday. Heideman said the 20-year-imprisonment sentence given Sakic by the Zagreb County Court today was a significant watershed for the judicial system not only in Croatia, but also indicated the way B'nai B'rith wanted other countries to take. Sakic was found guilty of war crimes against civilians after a six- month trial. He was the former commander of Jasenovac, a Croatian WW2 concentration camp. His sentence is the maximum under Croatian law. B'nai B'rith's Heideman believes Lithuanians Aleksandras Lileikas and Kazys Gimzauskas, Latvian Konrads Kaleys, who currently lives in Australia, Hungarian Jozsef Szendi, Austrian Alexander Schweidler, and Alois Brunner, believed to live in Sicily, deserve the same investigation and trial that were carried out in the Sakic case. Heideman also expressed satisfaction that B'nai B'rith had helped in bringing Sakic to justice, and with the fact that B'nai B'rith's representatives had been enabled to follow the trial. (hina) ha