2nd ‘Extraordinary’ Artukovic Appeal Rejected by Court

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —  The Yugoslav Federal Court has rejected a second “extraordinary” appeal of the death sentence against convicted war criminal Andrija Artukovic, the official Tanjug news agency reported Friday.

The appeal was submitted by the 87-year-old Artukovic’s lawyers March 25 and was rejected Thursday, the agency said.

Lawyers for the former Seal Beach, Calif., resident asked the sentence be waived because their client was ill and senile, but the court denied the appeal after acquiring a medical report.

Yugoslav law provides for an unlimited number of “extraordinary” appeals for people sentenced to death.

Yugoslavia charged that as interior minister in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia from 1941 to 1945, Artukovic implemented policies that sent 700,000 Serbs, Gypsies and Jews to their deaths.