War: Criminals Long-Delayed Date with Justice

Half-blind, senile, and emaciated from heart disease, Andrija Artukovic seemed oblivious as U.S. marshals bundled him aboard a JAT airlines flight to Yugoslavia last week. Only after staring hard at an illuminated sign in the plane that read FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT in Serbo-Croatian did Artukovic, 86, speak. Said he: "Now I know where I'm going." Indeed, his destination was a long-delayed date with justice. As Interior Minister in the puppet Nazi state of Croatia during World War II, Artukovic was known as the Butcher of the Balkans and held responsible for the murder of as many as 700,000 Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and others.

Artukovic took advantage of U.S. cold-war hostility toward Yugoslavia, among other things, to fend off extradition requests that began in 1951. He used false papers to emigrate to the U.S. in 1948, after first traveling to Italy, Switzerland and Ireland. Artukovic lived in California until his 1984 arrest and worked as a bookkeeper. The extradition order came less than an hour after U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist denied the aged Nazi's request for a stay. Unless his health prevents him from being tried for his crimes, his fate in Yugoslavia could be execution.