ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- Dinko Sakic, the last known living commander of a World War II concentration camp, was found guilty Monday of crimes against humanity and sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Sakic, 78, was convicted of responsibility in the killings of 2,000 people while he ran Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp in 1944.As Chief Judge Drazen Tripalo announced the verdict, Sakic applauded -- apparently mocking the decision.
Tripalo said the seven-member court found Sakic guilty of all charges. He said the commander, "maltreated, tortured and killed inmates -- acts that he either personally ordered, participated in or did nothing to prevent his subordinates from doing the same."
He also said Sakic was personally responsible for killing four inmates.
"We hope that the sentence -- made 55 years after the events -- will be a warning that all those who committed crimes in the near or distant past will not escape justice," Tripalo said. "We also hope that the verdict will be a warning for the future."
Jasenovac, described by Jewish groups as the "Auschwitz of the Balkans," was the worst of more than 20 concentration camps run by the pro-Nazi puppet state of Croatia. Tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats perished in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945.
Tripalo said "the obvious mass suffering of inmates" and Sakic's demonstrated "lack of remorse," were aggravating circumstances.
Inmates were subject to physical torture, starvation and hard labor, leading to the deaths of an unknown number of detainees, the court said. Sakic also was responsible for incidents in which individuals or groups were taken to a certain building within the camp, where they were tortured and killed, the verdict said.
Sakic also was found guilty of participating in or allowing sick inmates to be killed, and of carrying out "individual or group punishments" in order to intimidate other detainees.
He also was found responsible for mass killings and hangings, as well as for allowing his guards to kill "without reason."
The crimes "were not excesses, but a systematic procedure that certainly was not happening without the commander's knowledge," Tripalo said.
Sakic's lawyer, Ivan Kern, said he planned to appeal the verdict.
Tommy Baer, former president of the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith, praised the court's decision. "This should be a proud day for Croatia. The chief judge gave a very thoughtful, a very complete explanation of both the judgment and the reason for the sentence."
After the decision was announced, several right-wing extremists gathered in front of the courthouse, singing Croatian songs from World War II. One struck a human rights activist in the head, injuring him, before police led the rightists away.
During the six-month trial, more than 30 camp survivors recalled starvation, untreated diseases and killings of inmates deemed unfit to work.
At least four witnesses said they saw Sakic empty his gun into the head of a former inmate, physician Milo Boskovic.
Sakic sat calmly during their testimonies, appearing completely unmoved, sometimes even bored. He laughed at one testimony and rejected others as "fantasies" or anti-Croat propaganda.
He never expressed remorse, claiming defiantly that all he did was for the good of Croatia and Croats and that "no harm was done" to the inmates.
"I have no guilty conscience whatsoever," he stated in his final remarks last week.
Slavko Goldstein, who lost more than 30 family members at Jasenovac and other camps, said, "we who survived the Holocaust should not be vengeful, but this case was about justice."
Sakic fled Croatia in 1945, when the country's fascist regime was crushed, and lived peacefully in Argentina until June 1998, when he was extradited to Croatia to stand trial.