Yugoslav Court Denies Bid for Clemency by Artukovic Lawyers

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Judges rejected a clemency appeal Monday by lawyers for Andrija Artukovic, the former Orange County resident who was sentenced to death for war crimes committed while he was interior minister of Croatia, the government newspaper Politika reported.

Zagreb district court said Artukovic’s lawyers had no authorization from him or his family for the appeal, according to a report in the paper’s early Tuesday edition.

Artukovic, 87, was extradited from the United States in 1986.

He was found guilty May 14, 1986, in four specific cases related to the massacres of more than 700,000 concentration camp inmates while he held office in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia during World War II. Croatia is now a Yugoslav republic.

Artukovic entered the United States in 1948 on a false passport and moved soon afterward to Seal Beach, where he lived until his extradition.

His son Rad has said that the family had instructed the lawyers to seek all means of avoiding the death penalty, except for requesting clemency.

Last month, the court postponed Artukovic’s execution indefinitely on health grounds. Yugoslav law does not allow a death sentence to be carried out while the condemned person is ill.