Text of report in English by Croatian state news agency HINA

Zagreb, 29 July: Croatian President Stjepan Mesic has received a letter from Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, who expressed outrage at the way the funeral of a former commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Dinko Sakic, was organized.

According to a statement from President Mesic's office, Zuroff also severely criticized a speech held by a Catholic priest at Sakic's funeral in Zagreb last week.

Zuroff writes that the idea of burying in an Ustasha [Croatian WW2 fascists] uniform a former commander of the Jasenovac camp, one of the most horrendous camps in Europe during the Second World War, is a gross insult to all victims of the Ustasha regime as well as to all decent people with a conscience.

Recalling that many innocent Serbs, Jews and Croat anti-fascists were killed in the camp, Zuroff considers it outrageous for a priest to praise the camp commander as a model to all Croatians.

Zuroff calls on Mesic to openly condemn the funeral's organizers and the priest who led the religious rites.

Prompted by the letter, the Office of the President recalled that the Croatian head of state had repeatedly deplored in an unequivocal manner all crimes committed by the Ustasha regime, branding it as a criminal regime.

President Mesic's remarks naturally also refer to Dinko Sakic, who was one of the commanders of the Jasenovac camp and who was convicted by the Croatian judiciary as a war criminal, the office said.

President Mesic expects relevant state institutions to take appropriate measures to prevent Sakic's funeral, which was shamelessly exploited for the rehabilitation of the Ustasha movement, from inflicting damage to Croatia's reputation in the world and from producing a long-term detrimental effect on a part of disoriented young people, says the office.

In light of the fact that during the performance of religious rites priests do not act as private individuals, it is impossible to interpret the speech held at Sakic's funeral as the priest's personal position, the office said.

According to some media in Croatia, priest Vjekoslav Lasic said during Sakic's funeral that "the court that convicted Dinko Sakic, also convicted Croatia and the Croatian people". The priest said that Sakic was a member of the Ustasha movement which "restored the Croatian state on 10 April 1941" and that every honest Croatian should be proud of him.

The 87-year-old Sakic died in Zagreb's Dubrava Hospital on 20 July after a long and serious illness. He was extradited from Argentina in 1998, after which a Zagreb court sentenced him to 20 years' imprisonment for war crimes against civilians.

He had been serving his sentence in Lepoglava Prison before he was transferred to the Zagreb hospital on account of poor health.

After a six-month trial that ended in October 1999, the Zagreb County Court found Sakic guilty of ordering and carrying out acts of torture and murder and of failing to prevent and punish crimes committed by his subordinates. He was also convicted of personally shooting dead four inmates and ordering the hanging of 22.

Sakic served as commander of the Jasenovac camp from May to late October 1944.