ARREST SOUGHT FOR FORMER JASENOVAC CAMP COMMANDER

( Editorial: --> 5366 ) ZAGREB, April 7 (Hina) - The Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center asked Argentina on Tuesday to immediately arrest the former commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Dinko Sakic, 76, who has been living in the South American country since 1947, according to news agency reports from Jerusalem. On Tuesday night agencies reported from Buenos Aires that Argentinian President Carlos Menem ordered the Interior Minister to issue an arrest warrant for Sakic. The arrest demands follow Sakic's interview on Monday on Argentine television station Channel 13. In the interview Sakic admitted that he ran the Jasenovac camp from December 1942 until October 1944, but he claimed he operated it in a humane way, so that "not one guard or administrator was allowed to touch a prisoner". French news agency Agence France Presse, in its reports on Sakic, carried his claim that he met Croatian President Franjo Tudjman during a visit to Argentina in 1994. "We spent 17 minutes together and agreed that we would meet again. President Tudjman told me: 'I know what they are blaming you of'," Sakic said. When asked by Hina to comment on circumstances of such a meeting, the first reaction from the President's Office was that during his visit to Argentina the Croatian President did not separately meet with Sakic nor have separate talks with him. Tudjman met Sakic only at a reception in the President's honour. Guests at the reception were not invited by the President, the President's Office told Hina. (Hina) mm mb /mr 072312 MET apr 98