Croatia Nazi-Era Camp Commander Dies

Zagreb _ Dinko Sakic, a former commander of Croatia's most notorious Nazi-era concentration camp at Jasenovac during the Second World War, has died at age 86.

Sakic was in charge during May-October 1944 at the Jasenovac camp, where tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and others died under the Ustasa regime, Croatia's 1941-45 Nazi puppet government.

He died at a prison hospital in Zagreb.

Sakic was extradited to Croatia from Argentina in 1998 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes, the maximum sentence under Croatian law. He was convicted of personally executing 20 prisoners and ordering the execution and torture of many others.

He was put in a comfortable prison cell with television and a computer where he used to write his memoirs. He was allowed to visit his wife Nada several times a month in a retirement home in Croatia.

His wife was a guard at a women's concentration camp in Stara Gradiska, which was part of Jasenovac, a complex of five camps on the Sava river south of Zagreb. She was also put on trial but never convicted because no one could testify that she killed anyone.

In an interview with a Croatian daily in 1995, Sakic bragged with his deeds at the camp and said he would do them all over again if needed.

Jasenovac's death toll remains in dispute, especially between Serbs and Croats. Most Jasenovac victims were Serbs but Yugoslav Jews, Roma and Croats who opposed the Ustasa were also killed.

The most reliable estimates say 45,000-52,000 Serbs and 8,000-20,000 Jews died at the camp, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Estimates for the total number of Serbs killed by the Ustasa run between 56,000 and 1 million.