Andrija Artuković, the “Butcher of the Balkans,” was the highest-ranking Nazi collaborator ever found in the United States. A Croatian by birth, he worked in several different positions within the Ustasha government, including minister of the interior, as well as minister of justice and religion. In his capacity as a government official, Artuković instituted policies for the persecution of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Orthodox Christians, and communists. These policies permitted broad powers, including mandating internment of these “undesirables,” empowering summary courts to impose death sentences, calling for the execution of communist hostages, confiscating Jewish businesses, and limiting state and academic employment to Aryans. Between 1941 and 1945 more than 250,000 people (primarily Serbs, with Jews as the second largest group) died in Croatia as a result of these policies. In 1948 Artuković obtained a ninety-day visitor’s visa under a false name, traveled to the United States, and got a job in California. After he received two visa extensions, his real identity was discovered, and the government instituted deportation and extradition proceedings. Although efforts to extradite him began in 1951 and predated the establishment of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which eventually became involved in the case, they finally culminated in his expulsion in 1986. How did Artuković escape detection for three years? Why did it take three decades for the U.S. government to succeed in kicking him out of the country? How did he earn the title of Butcher of the Balkans? Who was Andrija Artuković? Did his crimes warrant deportation?
Andrija Artuković was born to Marijan and Ruža Artuković on 29 November 1899, in Croatia.1 At that time Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Devoted Catholics, the Artukovićs sent their son to the Franciscan monastery school in Široki Brijeg. At the end of World War I, with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the victors cobbled together several Balkan states into one country—Yugoslavia. Over twenty ethnic groups found themselves part of a nation that had no real identity. Included in this were two traditional enemies: Serbians and Croatians. For the next decade, as the fledgling nation struggled to unify the different groups into a Yugoslav citizenry, not every Balkan state embraced its new home. Andrija Artuković came to maturity during this contentious period.
After graduation, Artuković earned a law degree at the University of Zagreb. From 1924 to 1926 he worked as a court clerk in Zagreb before opening his own law office in Gospić, a city about 130 miles from Zagreb. Located in the northwestern part of Croatia, Zagreb was the second largest city in Yugoslavia during this time.2 As Yugoslavians tried to craft a Yugoslav identity, not all ethnic groups embraced unification, and some began to explore the possibility of separation from the larger state. As he lived and worked in Zagreb, Artuković crossed paths with a man who would have a big impact on his future—Ante Pavelić.
Pavelić was a lawyer and politician, a member of the Croatian Party of Rights, and a supporter of an independent Croatia. By the late 1920s he publicly advocated that Croats rebel against the Yugoslav state. He formed an alliance with an Italian protectorate that supported a separate Croatia. In January 1929, after King Alexander I banned political parties, Pavelić left his homeland and formed another alliance—this time with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization—in an effort to undermine the Yugoslav state. Although he was tried in absentia and sentenced to death, Pavelić continued his effort by moving to Italy and founding the Ustaše—the Croatian Revolutionary Organization—which was dedicated to the creation of an independent Croatian state. Fierce nationalists and primarily Catholics, the Ustaše also embraced Bosnian Muslims as their blood brothers. Artuković would soon abandon his law career and embrace a life of political activism. Like Pavelić, he would advocate for an independent Croatia.
In 1929 Andrija Artuković also traveled to Italy and joined the Ustaše. As Pavelić’s trusted adjutant and commander of the Italian Ustaše, Artuković prepared to hit the ground running. In September 1932 he briefly returned to Croatia, where he led a small uprising in Lika, called the Velebit uprising, after the mountains in which the small town is located. The small armed attack on a police station was a test to see if it would spark a general Croatian revolt against the Yugoslav state. After a thirty-minute firefight in which no police officers were killed and nine of the ten Ustaše participants escaped, Artuković successfully returned to Italy. Although the attack did not result in an uprising, the government’s harsh treatment of Croatians in the region provided a propaganda weapon that the Ustaše wielded to their advantage when they advocated an independent Croatian state.
Heralded as a hero on his return to Italy, Artuković, the Ustaše intellectual, was ready for his next assignment.3 Leaving Italy, he traveled to Budapest and then Vienna, where he was arrested, imprisoned, and expelled in 1934. In September 1934, after a meeting with Pavelić in Milan, he traveled to London, where he was arrested a month later. The catalyst for his arrest was King Alexander I’s assassination on 4 October 1934. Because of his political activities, the authorities suspected that Artuković played a part in the assassination plot. After being transferred to a Paris prison, he was extradited in 1935 to Yugoslavia, where he spent sixteen months in prison before being acquitted of having a role in the king’s death and released in April 1936. Following his release, Artuković returned briefly to Gospić before setting out once again to advocate for the Ustaše cause—first in Austria, then in Germany. Being an advocate for a nationalist group that did not hesitate to implement terrorist tactics brought him to the Gestapo’s attention in 1937. Although he fled Berlin just prior to his arrest, Artuković did not let the Gestapo threat deter him. Following a circuitous route—France to Hungary and back to Germany again—he returned to his work in Berlin, where he apparently remained for the next few years.
Two events, however, occurred in April 1941 that propelled Artuković’s return to his homeland and a career trajectory that ultimately resulted in his condemnation by the global community. On 6 April German troops invaded Yugoslavia. Four days later, with the German dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Slavko Kvaterkik, the most senior home-based Ustaše, proclaimed the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia. Artuković returned to Zagreb and quickly became a member of the Croatian State Leadership, the temporary government established by Kvaterkik. Prepared to assume the reins of power, Ante Pavelić also returned to Zagreb. At that point things moved quickly. On 16 April 1941 the Ustaše founder appointed Artuković the minister of interior in the new government, thus making him a member of Pavelić’s inner circle and the enforcer of his orders. A short, stocky, accomplished orator, Artuković fulfilled multiple roles in the new Croatian government. He helped negotiate the Ciano-Pavelić agreement, which was the result of boundary negotiations between Italy and Croatia. In June 1941 he accompanied Pavelić to a meeting with Adolf Hitler.4 It was not, however, Artuković’s negotiating or oratory skills that shaped the public’s later opinion of him. It was, rather, the Nazi policies that he helped to implement in Croatia.
Evidence suggests that from the beginning the Independent State of Croatia government was more than just sympathetic to the Nazi cause; it was pro-Nazi: “It was dedicated to a clerical-fascist ideology influenced both by Nazism and extreme Roman Catholic fanaticism. On coming to power, the Ustaše Party dictatorship in Croatia quickly commenced on a systematic policy of racial extermination of all Serbs, Jews and Gypsies living within its borders.”5 Artuković embraced the racist views as espoused by the Croatian government, the Ustaše Party, and the Nazi regime, as evidenced by a speech that he made to the Croatian State Assembly. During the speech, “he described Jews as having: ‘prepared the world revolution, so that through it the Jews could have complete mastery over all the goods of the world and all the power in the world, the Jews whom the other people had to serve as a means of their filthy profits and of its greedy, materialistic and rapacious control of the world.’”6
After his meeting with Hitler, one of Pavelić’s ministers, Mile Budak, announced the state’s racial policy, but it wasn’t the first such policy. The precedent had been set months earlier. On 17 April 1941 “the first Legal order for the defense of the people and the states” dictated the death penalty as punishment for “infringement on the honor and vital interests of the Croatian people and the survival of the Independent State of Croatia.” On 30 April the government issued the “legal order of races” and the “legal order of the protection of Aryan blood and the honor of the Croatian people.” On 4 June the government ordered the “creation and definition of the racial-political committee.”7 Apparently, Artuković signed these orders. It was part of his job to implement Pavelić’s directive to “save Croatia for the Croatians.”8 This ultimately meant eliminating the Serbian and Jewish presence in Croatia. In addition, enforcement of these orders was legal both through the preexisting courts and through the “new out-of-order courts as well as mobile court-martials with extended jurisdictions.”9 Those who harbored Jews were subject to the death penalty as well.
Jews were not the only targets of these policies. The Serbian Orthodox Church was also affected by these racial laws, which became more and more violent in their implementation. By late 1941, for example, three Orthodox bishops and almost all of the Orthodox priests had lost their lives, although not as a result of the legal implementation of these laws. They were violently murdered. By the end of the war the Ustaše had destroyed 450 Orthodox churches and forced the conversion of many Serbs to Catholicism.10
Artuković did not oppose these policies. In fact, he embraced them and supported their implementation and, as a result, was rewarded. By October 1941 Artuković could put another title after his name—minister of justice and religion. Two years later he was named secretary of state, a position he held from October 1943 until the war’s end in May 1945.11
Expediency dictated the adoption of another Nazi policy—the establishment of concentration camps. Approximately twenty camps were situated in Croatia. Estimates of the number of deaths that occurred at these camps varies depending on the source. According to the OSI, “approximately 25,000 Jews, 250,000 Serbs, and numerous Gypsies, Orthodox Christians and Communists perished in the Independent State of Croatia between April 1941 and May 1945.”12 Other sources suggest that 30,000 Jews and 750,000 Orthodox Christians perished, while another 240,000 Orthodox Christians were forcibly converted to Catholicism.13
After the war the government accused Artuković, who was responsible for overseeing the concentration camps in Croatia, of being personally responsible for at least 700,000 deaths, which is almost the number who perished in one camp alone—Jasenovac. This is perhaps what earned him the name Butcher of the Balkans.14 The Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) established a total of twenty-two concentration camps. Jasenovac was in existence from August 1941 until April 1945. Established and maintained by Department III of the Croatian Security Police (Ustashka Nadzorna Sluzba), Jasenovac, which fell under the command of head of the security police, Vjekoslav Maks Luburic, “became the largest and most important concentration camp and extermination camp complex” and was “crucial in the systematic and planned genocide of the Orthodox Serbs of the Srpska Vojna Krajina and of Bosnia-Hercegovinia by the Croats and Bosnian Muslims. . . . Jasenovac was in fact a system or complex of concentration and extermination camps occupying a surface of 130 square miles, set up under decree-law, No. 1528-2101-Z-1941, on September 25, 1941, legally authorizing the creation of ‘assembly or work camps for undesirable and dangerous persons.’” The “undesirable and dangerous persons” arrested and sent to Jasenovac included “Jews, Bosniaks, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustaša regime.” Prior to August 1942 the majority of Jews who lost their lives were exterminated at Jasenovac. That changed after the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942, with the formulation of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” and a German proposal. For a fee of thirty reichsmarks per person, the Germans would transport Jews, arrested by the Independent State of Croatia, to concentration camps in the east, particularly to Auschwitz. Any confiscated Jewish property would be retained by Croatia. This agreement indicated the level of cooperation that existed between the Nazis and the Independent State of Croatia.15
As a top government official, how could Artuković have been held personally responsible for a government policy that resulted in thousands of deaths? In 1984 his Ustaše motorcycle escort—Bajro Avdic—testified against him in a sworn affidavit. According to his statement, Avdic “had heard Artukovic order thousands of deaths, including: (1) the machine-gun firing of approximately 450 men, women, and children for whom there was no room in a concentration camp; (2) the killing of all the inhabitants of a town and its surrounding villages; (3) the murder of approximately 5,000 persons near a monastery; and (4) the machine gun execution of several hundred prisoners who were then crushed by moving tanks.”16
It is hard to imagine that Artuković’s role in these atrocities, particularly since he was a high government official, escaped unnoticed. This begs the question: how was he able to enter the United States and live in obscurity for several years? Two days before the war in Europe ended, Artuković, seeing the handwriting on the wall, left Zagreb and traveled to Austria, where he was briefly detained by the Allies at Spittal an der Drau camp in the British zone. Although the British extradited some Croatian government officials, including the prime minister, Artuković slipped under the radar and obtained release with several other ministers. He quickly left the British zone and traveled to meet his family in the American zone. Around the time when his career as a public official in Croatia was cemented, Artuković had married Ana Maria Heidler. By the end of the war, the couple had two children.
Reunited, the family proceeded to Switzerland. With the help of some dubious church officials, he obtained a Swiss passport under a different name—Alois Anich—and traveled to Ireland. According to Artuković, “I stayed in Switzerland until July 1947. Then with the knowledge of the Swiss Ministry of Justice I obtained personal documents for myself and my family, which enabled us to travel to Ireland. Using the name of Anitch [sic], we stayed there until 15 July 1948. When our Swiss documents expired, the Irish issued new papers and under Irish papers we obtained a visa for entry into New York.”17 Artuković and his family traveled to Ireland at a time when Franciscan religious leaders were negotiating with the Irish government in an effort to get the country to accept a small number of Croatian refugees. Furthermore, the road to the United States was not necessarily as easy as Artuković suggested, or was it?
Artuković was not the only one with a dubious wartime record who sought help from Catholic Church officials to escape prosecution. Furthermore, since the end of the war, allegations asserting the participation of some religious orders—in particular the Franciscan order—in wartime atrocities had surfaced. Evidence seems to suggest, however, that Ireland knew little about possible connections between the Catholic Church and collaboration with the Nazis. In early 1946 some religious began to explore the possibility of Ireland as a safe haven for those fleeing persecution or prosecution. Father Charles Balić put out feelers on behalf of the College of St. Jerome—the Franciscan House in Rome—to ascertain if Ireland would be willing to accept some Croatian students. According to Balić, these students, who were at that time based in Italy and Austria, had fled communist Yugoslavia. Joseph Walshe, Ireland’s Department of External Affairs secretary, suggested that his country might be open to receiving these students if they obtained the appropriate travel documents. For various reasons, however, including opposition from some Irish officials, the possibility of Ireland admitting Croat student refugees seemed to be a nonstarter; therefore, for a time Ireland did not seem to be an option for Artuković, who certainly was not a student.
As one door closed, another appeared to open. In 1946, after publicly condemning the Yugoslav government, Aloysius Stepinac—cardinal archbishop of Zagreb—faced trial for wartime collaboration with the Independent State of Croatia. To the Irish, his conviction signaled Catholic persecution by communist Yugoslavia. In response to Stepinac’s conviction, Irish officials intimated a vague desire to help persecuted Catholic Croats. The door to freedom opened a little wider for Artuković, although he used circuitous means to go through it.
In March 1947 Frank Cremins, Irish minister to Berne, received visa applications from a Franciscan priest and his professor uncle—Rev. Father Louis Ivandić OFM and Alois Anich (Andrija Artuković). The two men indicated a desire to spend a year in Ireland to pursue “philological and historical studies and to learn English.” The delegate general of the Franciscans of Switzerland, who facilitated the visa requests, also indicated Anich’s desire for his family to follow him to Ireland to escape “Yugoslav persecution.” To sweeten the request, the delegate general noted that his order in Dublin would look after the Anich family, who had sufficient personal financial resources for the trip. Both Ivandić and Anich (Artuković) received Swiss identity documents and the requested visas.18
On 15 July 1947 Artuković, traveling under the name Alois Anich, arrived in Dublin with his family—his wife, Ana Maria, and their daughters, Katherina and Anna—and Father Ivandić. Upon their arrival, when questioned by immigration officials, Artuković made two statements that eased the family’s entry into Ireland. First, Anich’s brother, who lived in Los Angeles, would provide financial support for the family while they were in Ireland. Second, after a year in Ireland the family would relocate permanently to South America. By the time the year in Ireland was up, however, the family’s ultimate destination would change, although it was, perhaps, their real plan from the beginning. One thing was certain, however—the Artuković family would not return to Switzerland, where Swiss authorities instituted an entry ban on Artuković two days after the family’s departure.
For the next year the Artukovićs lived quietly in Dublin. In addition to teaching history periodically, Artuković attended daily Mass at the Church of the Three Patrons. The family welcomed a new addition when Radoslav was born. In June 1948 the Irish Department of Justice issued Alois Anich and his wife identity documents, at which time the couple relinquished their Swiss identity papers. The new documents allowed them to return to Ireland without a visa for a year. With the new documents in hand, Artuković submitted an application for a “non-immigrant” U.S. visa and swore under oath before the American vice-consul that his name was Alois Anich. On his application he listed his occupation as professor and the purpose of the trip as a “six-month holiday.” Ironically, when he applied for the identity documents from Irish authorities, Artuković indicated that he was moving to the United States permanently. This was not the first time that Artuković was less than honest—and it would not be the last time either. Visas in hand, the Artukovićs left Dublin and arrived in New York on 16 July 1948—a year and a day after their plane had touched down in the Irish capital. Instead of passports, they carried temporary visas and Irish identity papers.19
The family did not stay in New York. Artuković’s brother John, who lived in California, owned a construction company. The family joined him, and Artuković, or Anich, went to work for John as his bookkeeper. According to the OSI, Artuković was in the United States on a “90-day visitor’s visa.” He applied for and received a visa extension twice but was unlikely to receive a third extension. The expiration date on the second visa extension was April 1949. Desperate to remain in the United States, Artuković had John approach his local representative for help. Unfortunately, this created multiple problems for him. Following established protocols, “his Congressman introduced a private bill to retroactively bestow lawful admission on Artuković and his family.” The bill went nowhere because of opposition from the chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, who killed it. Although the bill died, Congress followed the routine procedure of sending it to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for review. Consequently, the bill initiated an INS investigation of Artuković, because it identified him by his real name—not as Alois Anich. The INS very quickly discovered two troubling facts. First, because he had been admitted under a false name, Artuković had entered the United States unlawfully. Second, he was wanted in Yugoslavia, where the government wanted to try him for war crimes. Because of his efforts to remain in the United States, the Butcher of the Balkans had inadvertently outed himself.20 In the meantime, as INS debated what to do about Artuković, he remained in the United States.
The government had two options to eject Artuković—deportation or extradition—and pursued them both. Thus began the decades’ long effort of the Department of Justice to return Andrija Artuković to his homeland to face the music and answer for his role in the extermination of Serbs, Jews, and other groups. The government took the case to court and filed both proceedings in 1951. While he did not challenge deportation on the grounds that he had entered the country under a false name and that he had stayed under an expired visa, Artuković petitioned to be granted refuge under a provision that would suspend deportation under specific circumstances—that he was of “good moral character” and that deportation would have severe economic consequences.21 The wrinkle was that his fourth child, born in the United States, was a U.S. citizen. Artuković’s argument was that his deportation would create undue economic hardship for his infant daughter.
Ignoring the economic issue, the INS argued that Artuković’s lack of “good moral character” made him ineligible for an exemption to the rules. Providing evidence of his record as a cabinet minister who had been responsible for the execution of Serbs and Jews, among others, the INS convinced an immigration judge, who ruled against Artuković. The judge’s ruling stood up under appeal. In crafting his opinion, the judge wrote,
There appears to be little doubt (1) that the new Croatian state, at least on paper, pursued a genocidal policy in Croatia with regard to Jews and Serbs; (2) that Artukovic helped execute this policy in that, as Minister of Interior, he had authority and control over the entire system of Public Security and Internal Administration; and (3) that during this time there were massacres of Serbs and, perhaps to a lesser extent, of other minority groups within Croatia. . . . It is difficult for us to think of one man, other than [the Croatian president] who could have been more responsible for the events occurring in Croatia during this period than was [Artukovic].22
Deportation now seemed a real possibility. Scrambling, Artuković tried a new tactic. Acknowledging that as cabinet minister, he authorized the persecution of communists, he argued that he would, consequently, be subject to similar persecution if he were deported to Yugoslavia; therefore, Artuković requested a deportation stay. Because the extradition case against the Croat had not yet been resolved, the judge postponed a ruling on the deportation stay request until the other case had been resolved. By postponing a decision, the judge had given Artuković a reprieve, albeit a brief one.
Filed on 29 August 1951, the Extradition Complaint was based on the allegation that Artuković had “murdered, or caused to be murdered, 22 persons, including the Archbishop of Sarajevo.” A warrant was issued, and Artuković was arrested. He was denied bail at a 10 September hearing. His extradition hearing was placed on the docket for 22 October. Throughout the month of September, various petitions were filed in the court. Although bond had initially been denied, which was normal, it was set at $50,000 on the nineteenth for two reasons. The judge believed that, because of his ties to the community, Artuković would not flee. In addition, he was dubious about the case’s merits. The judge said,
I am impressed by the date of the offenses, 1941; and the fact that Yugoslavia was invaded by Germany on April 6, 1941, and thereafter occupied by Germany until 1945 and that the whole world and especially that portion of the world, was in a terrible turmoil. . . . I cannot help but think that it might be possible, if extradition treaties with various countries were carried out to the letter in connection with charges that might be made, they might demand the extradition of every person who was a member of any armed forces against them and charge them with having committed murder, because surely people who are members of armed forces do kill other people, and they kill them just as dead as they would if they privately did it and with as much intention.
Artuković posted bail and was released the next day, 20 September. A week before the extradition hearing, the complaint was amended.23
Over the course of these proceedings, Artuković acquired numerous influential advocates who championed his cause. The day of his extradition hearing finally arrived, and Artuković was able to argue his case against being extradited. His case rested on two contentions. His first argument revolved around the nature of the 1902 U.S. extradition treaty with Serbia. It was his argument that the treaty was no longer valid. Serbia no longer existed as an independent country. How could the United States have a legitimate treaty with a state within a country? In 1951 the United States did not have an extradition treaty with Yugoslavia, which wanted Artuković returned to face trial for war crimes. The troubled relations between Serbia and Croatia was also an issue. Artuković’s second contention was that the charges against him, which were political in nature, were not extraditable offenses.
The case dragged on . . . and on. Both sides filed motions, and the judge granted continuances. The judge finally issued a ruling on 14 July 1952. In the judge’s opinion, “the Treaty between the United States and the Kingdom of Serbia of 1902 is not now in force and effect between the United States and the country now known as Yugoslavia.” By making a decision on the first contention, the judge decided that he did not have to address the second one related to political offenses.24 The judge’s decision, since it voided an existing treaty, was of particular concern to the U.S. government. Concerned that the ruling might set a problematic precedent, the government teamed up with the government of Yugoslavia in filing an appeal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard the appeal—Ivancevic v. Artukovic—and on 19 February 1954 issued a ruling overturning the district court decision. The higher court in effect decided that the “treaty between the United States and Serbia in 1902 was a present, valid and effective treaty between the United States and the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court with instructions to consider whether or not Yugoslavia’s charges against Artuković were political in nature. On 3 April 1956 the district court judge issued his decision. He concluded that the charges were political and rooted in deep-seated ethnic problems. Siding with the defendant, the judge ruled that the charges lodged by Yugoslavia indicated the “animus which has existed between the Croatians and the Serbs for many hundreds of years, as well as the deep religious cleavage known to exist among the peoples in the Balkans.” The government filed an appeal and refused to give up when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court decision. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On 10 March 1958 the Supreme Court ruled in the government’s favor by “vacating the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals affirming the judgment of the District Court.” The Supreme Court went a step further and returned the case to the district court with instructions to decide if Artuković had committed offenses that were extraditable under the 1902 treaty.25
The wheels of justice turned slowly. The case dragged on . . . and on, as additional motions were filed by both sides. From the time of the initial court filings in 1951, eight years passed by the time Theodore Hocke, U.S. commissioner for the district court, issued a decision as charged by the Supreme Court. On 15 January 1959 Hocke ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support the government’s contention that Artuković had committed extraditable offenses under the 1902 treaty with Serbia. According to the judge, “Absolutely no evidence was presented that the defendant himself committed murder. The complainant [Yugoslavia] relies entirely upon their evidence that members of the ‘ustasa’ committed murders upon orders from the defendant.” The judge criticized two aspects of the governments’ case. It was based primarily on hearsay evidence, and the submitted affidavits from witnesses used language—“children of tender years, new-born babes, aged persons, cruel and inhuman treatment, etc.”—designed “to incite passion and prejudice.” Furthermore, unlike the complainant, the defense presented witnesses who could be cross-examined. Although acknowledging that his orders resulted in “internment, deportation, and in some cases killing, of civilians,” Hocke “rejected the Nuremberg concept that leaders are accountable for decrees signed by them but carried out by others.”26 In rendering his decision, Hocke also made clear his opinion about cases such as the one against Artuković:
Upon consideration of all of the evidence presented and the authorities cited [*392] by both parties I can reach but one conclusion. The complainant has not shown by sufficient competent evidence that there is a reasonable or probable cause to believe the defendant guilty of any of the crimes charged. I hope I do not live to see the day when a person will be held to answer for a crime in either the California or United States courts upon such evidence as was presented in this case on behalf of the complainant. It would be mere speculation or surmise to find the acts charged were done upon orders from the defendant.27
The judge’s ruling on the extradition case could not be appealed; therefore, this legal action was over.
Artuković could breathe a sigh of relief. He would not be extradited. But his request for a deportation stay remained unresolved. Four months later the INS rendered its decision. Agreeing that, in all likelihood, Artuković would be persecuted if he were returned to Yugoslavia because as cabinet minister he had opposed the communists, the INS supported a stay of deportation but did stress the support could be withdrawn. Although he could celebrate another victory, Artuković could not rest easy. One day the INS could change its mind and rescind the stay.
The Artuković case, which dragged on for years, ebbed and flowed with the winds. After receiving the stay, he stayed out of the limelight until he was thrust into it again with Israel’s prosecution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Witnesses in the Eichmann case claimed that Yugoslav Jews were deported and executed at Artuković’s request. In 1963 Artuković came onto the radar of the Los Angeles Federal Bureau of Investigation. Plans were underway for a visit to the United States by the president of Yugoslavia—Josip Broz Tito. Fearing assassination of the communist leader while on American soil, the Department of State requested from the Yugoslav government a list of all those who might pose a threat. Andrija Artuković’s name was on the list and prompted an FBI assessment. Although they did not seem to deem him a threat, the FBI interviewed Artuković in 1967 in the wake of bombings at the Yugoslav consulates in Canada and the United States. During the interview Artuković, who was sixty-seven and semiretired and living in Surfside, California, acknowledged that he was both anti-Tito and anticommunist but noted that his activities in Yugoslav circles had ended years earlier. Furthermore, he was appreciative of his life in the United States and of the fact that he had not been extradited to Yugoslavia. The FBI report was straightforward, but lacked recommendations or conclusions.
Although living peacefully in Surfside, Artuković continually faced scrutiny; therefore, uncertainty was frequently the order of the day. Periodically, the INS would review the Artuković case to ascertain whether or not to lift the deportation stay. As late as 1974, however, the INS, based on an assessment by the Department of State, acknowledged the likelihood that Artuković would be persecuted if sent to Yugoslavia. But things were about to heat up again for the Croat.
Enter Elizabeth Holtzman, a graduate of Harvard University Law School, who, after practicing law for a few years, decided to enter politics. In 1972 she ran for Congress and, when she beat the incumbent Emanuel Celler, became the youngest woman elected to the House of Representatives. Passionate about the record of the INS and the Department of Justice in identifying and prosecuting Nazi criminals who were living in the United States, Holtzman sought and received a coveted position on the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law. By 1978 she authored and persuaded Congress to pass the Holtzman Amendment. What does this have to do with Artuković? The Holtzman Amendment filled a loophole for the INS. It authorized the deportation of war criminals. Included in the list of war criminals were persons who engaged in “Nazi persecution, genocide, or the commission of any act of torture or extrajudicial killing.”28
Even before Congress passed the Holtzman Amendment, Elizabeth Holtzman became interested in several INS cases, including the one related to Andrija Artuković. She was troubled by what she read in Artuković’s file. While Holtzman considered how to move forward with regard to Artuković, the House Judiciary Committee launched its own investigation and traveled to Eastern Europe in 1977 on a fact-finding mission. Upon their return, the committee reported on the Yugoslav government’s position with regard to Artuković. Unhappy that he had not already been extradited or deported, the Yugoslavs asserted that they wanted to try Artuković for war crimes and promised to have an open trial that copied the due-process standards practiced by the United States. After hearing the House Judiciary Committee’s report, the INS notified Artuković that the stay would not be renewed and gave him thirty days to provide just cause for an extension. Instead of complying, Artuković filed a lawsuit against the government to prevent it from moving forward. Ruling “that the government could not summarily lift the stay,” the judge gave Artuković some breathing room. The case would go to the immigration courts for a decision.29
At this point, things really began to heat up and move more quickly to a climax. The passage of the Holtzman Amendment gave the government a way around the judge’s ruling. The case landed on the OSI’s desk shortly after its establishment, and in October 1979 the office immediately filed paperwork in court to have the stay lifted. In June 1981 the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled on the OSI petition.30 The BIA “is the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws.”31 According to the BIA, Artuković “had offered no new evidence sufficient to call into question the soundness of the BIA’s 1953 determination that Artuković had been a leader in the Nazi puppet government in Croatia and that he had, in that capacity, participated in the persecution of Serbs, Jews, and others.”32 Arguing that the Holtzman Amendment should be applied to the case, the BIA agreed with the OSI argument. Granting the OSI request to lift the stay, the BIA issued orders for Artuković’s deportation to Yugoslavia.
It appeared that the path to the deportation of Andrija Artuković was open—or was it? As was to be expected, on the same day that the BIA handed down its decision, Artuković and his lawyers filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court. Pending a decision there, the stay would remain in place. Rendering a ruling that was perhaps a bit unusual, the Ninth Circuit Court argued that the BIA could not use “the 1953 finding to justify deportation in 1981.” The underlying issue for consideration had changed. In the 1950s it was whether or not Artuković’s deportation would provide undue economic hardship on his infant daughter. In 1981 the underlying issue was whether or not Artuković met the criteria of the “newly-enacted Holtzman Amendment.” In other words, the government would have to collect more evidence and request a new hearing by an immigration judge, which it did in February 1984. In January 1985 Artuković would be back in front of an immigration judge.33
As might be expected, the Yugoslav government followed these proceedings carefully and contemplated filing a new extradition request, an option that it had begun exploring as early as 1981. In July 1983 three members of the Department of Justice—the deputy assistant attorney general, Mark M. Richard; the acting OSI director, Neal Sher; and the associate director of the Office of International Affairs, Murray Stein—traveled to Yugoslavia to discuss the possibility.34 While these explorations were underway, the OSI was gathering information for a new deportation hearing. In November 1983 the OSI sent a historian to search Yugoslav archives for information. He located and forwarded pertinent documents to his supervisors at OSI. Things began to snowball.
In August 1984 Yugoslavia reentered the fray by formally requesting Artuković’s extradition. Justification for the request was the contention that thousands of murders fell at the former cabinet minister’s door. In November 1984 Artuković found himself arrested again and behind bars. His request for bail was also denied—again. Here we go again, he must have thought. Although his deportation hearing was scheduled for January 1985, it was put on hold pending the outcome of the new extradition case.
Artuković fought both deportation and extradition with every weapon available—even, legitimately, his failing health. Artuković and his lawyers filed a motion to block the extradition hearing by requesting a contempt ruling against the government. Although he argued—correctly—that the government was attempting to do an end run around the deportation hearing, the judge threw out the motion and paved the way for the extradition case against Artuković to move forward.
Before allowing the case to begin, however, the extradition court had to determine whether or not Artuković was “mentally competent to understand the proceedings and to assist his counsel.”35 At eighty-four he was plagued by numerous ailments and was in poor health. The court-appointed doctor testified that Artuković was not competent to stand trial. He recommended a delay for appropriate treatment. Relying on his own observations of Artuković in the courtroom and declaring that the defendant had both good and bad days, the judge rejected the doctor’s recommendation and ordered the trial to proceed, but he did establish parameters that took Artuković’s health into account. Not only would the doctor make daily reports about Artuković’s condition, but the proceedings would occur in half-day increments every other day, depending on the defendant’s health.
Not to be deterred, the defense tried again to have the case derailed by filing a motion arguing that “federal officials had impermissibly encouraged Yugoslavia to request extradition.” For Artuković, the encouragement was not the issue. It was the lapse in time between when the first extradition request had been denied and the current proceedings—twenty-five years. The defense argued that the gap created a disadvantage for the defendant and that his client had, as a result, been denied due process. This argument got the judge’s attention. He challenged OSI director Sher: “If it develops that some politician was trying to run for higher office by railroading Mr. Artukovic back to Yugoslavia, that would be impermissible.” Unfortunately for Artuković, Sher’s response satisfied his concerns. The judge determined that the Department of Justice had not committed misconduct and that the extradition proceedings had been initiated by the Yugoslav government. Things were not going Artuković’s way this time.36
The next issue at hand before the court was the merits of the government’s case for extradition. The government presented fifty-two sworn affidavits to the court, which focused on only two of them. These two statements were from eyewitnesses who testified to Artuković’s role in the “murder of civilians.”37 These witnesses were Franjo Trujar and Bajro Avdic.
An Ustaše police official, Franjo Trujar was deposed in 1984, at which time he swore an affidavit that he had been interviewed in July 1952. The transcript of the first interview factored heavily in the one conducted in 1984 because by that time the elderly Trujar’s memory was faulty. According to the 1952 statement, Trujar was present when Artuković ordered the elimination of a former Yugoslav parliamentarian who had been an outspoken critic of the government. The case against Artuković was mounting, and the next witness statement would put another nail in his coffin.
As noted earlier in this chapter, Bajro Avdic was an Ustaše motorcycle escort. In his sworn affidavit Avdic accused Artuković of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He claimed that he had overheard the cabinet minister issuing orders for the elimination of concentration camp overflow when there was no possibility of interning more people in the camp. According to Avdic, Artuković authorized the extermination of an entire town’s population, along with that of the surrounding villages, and several thousand people who were near a monastery. Perhaps the most egregious charge was that Artuković ordered “the machine gun execution of several hundred prisoners who were then crushed by moving tanks.”38
The Avdic affidavit was even more damning than Trujar’s. Citing the sworn affidavits from Trujar and Avdic, the judge ordered that Artuković be extradited to Yugoslavia to face the music—in other words, where he would be tried for war crimes. Fighting to the bitter end, Artuković and his defense team filed a motion for an emergency stay. Artuković had his answer five days later, when the appeals court denied his request. Artuković appealed to the Supreme Court. On 12 February 1986 Associate Justice William Rehnquist issued his decision. He denied Artuković’s request that the Supreme Court delay his extradition. Within minutes of the 1:00 p.m. announcement of the Rehnquist ruling, Andrija Artuković, who had been imprisoned since November 1984, found himself on a plane to Yugoslavia. After decades he had lost the battle that he had been fighting since 1951, when the government first filed deportation and extradition proceedings against him. Artuković was finally going home—not to Surfside, California, but to Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government, which had been advocating for this moment for just as long as Artuković had been fighting it, would finally achieve justice.
One month later, in March 1986, Artuković stood trial for war crimes and was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, although his poor health brought an indefinite postponement in carrying out the sentence. He would instead be sent to prison. On 18 January 1988 a Yugoslav press release announced that Andrija Artuković had died in a prison hospital in Zagreb. For Andrija Artuković the nightmare that had lasted for over three decades was finally over.39
Although it did not end well for Artuković, the OSI had picked up the gauntlet from the first INS case against the Croat, stayed the course despite setbacks, and achieved a victory that affirmed its existence. “The Artukovic case stands out in many respects. It was OSI’s first filing. Artukovic was the only Cabinet official and the only Croat ever prosecuted by the office. And he was the first OSI defendant to be extradited, though he was followed just two weeks thereafter by John Demjanjuk. Artukovic matters have spanned decades. If one begins with the original INS deportation filings in 1951, the case and its progeny have been around for over half a century.”40
Artuković, as a government official, was in a position to craft policies that resulted in mass execution. Serbs, Jews, Orthodox Christians, and others paid the ultimate cost as a result of these policies. Artuković did more than rubber stamp them. He embraced them. Therefore, his crimes were as, if not more, egregious than those committed by Karl Linnas—the subject of the next chapter—because they had broader implications. His policies potentially affected a much larger group of people than those in the one concentration camp where Linnas was based. At the end of the day, Andrija Artuković’s work with the Ustaše—perhaps aptly—earned him the title Butcher of the Balkans.