Zuroff met Chief Public Prosecutor Mladen Bajic to discuss the 91-year-old Asner, a former Ustasha official in the eastern Croatian town of Pozega. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre believes that Asner committed war crimes by persecuting Pozega Jews in his capacity as a commander of the Ustasha police in the service of the Nazi regime.
There is very solid evidence and documents which incriminate Asner, but some witnesses who knew him in those days are afraid to testify, Zuroff said at a news conference held in the offices of the nongovernmental organisation GOLJP.
According to Zuroff, the Public Prosecutor's Office will also decide within 60 days on the submission of a request for Asner's transfer from Austria. Along with Croatian citizenship, Asner also holds Austrian citizenship.
Zuroff was hopeful that Asner would be put on trial in Pozega where the crimes are alleged to have been committed, but he did not rule out the possibility of Asner being tried in absence.
Information about Asner was collected as part of an international operation to catch war criminals called "Last Chance", which Croatia joined in June this year. During the operation, information was gathered on ten more suspects, whose identity Zuroff did not want to reveal. He only said that one of the cases was a serious case from Osijek and that there were several cases of persons from Dubrovnik.
Zuroff gave a cheque for 5,000 dollars to Alen Budaj, who published information on Asner, which he obtained during his research of the history of the Jewish community in Pozega. Budaj said that his motive was not money but the desire not to let war crimes be forgotten and the perpetrator go unpunished. He added that neither he nor his family had received any threats in connection with the case, but GOLJP president Zoran Pusic reported to the police that he received threats after the case was made public.
Zuroff said that Croatia was the only country where participants in the "Last Chance" operation received threats because of their activity.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre launched the project in 2002 and so far it has gathered information on 320 suspects in eight European countries.
Zuroff said that investigations against the suspects were at different stages and estimated that Asner could be the first one to be put on trial.