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Croatia charges former communist spy over WWII killings

18.04.2007

ZAGREB, April 18, 2007 (AFP) - Croatian police said Wednesday they pressed charges against a former communist-era spy over atrocities committed during and after World War II.

Petar Zinajic, a former member of then Yugoslavia's security agency OZNA, was suspected of having ordered the killings of 139 people in the region of the central Croatian town of Slunj.

"The victims were members of the (pro-Nazi) Ustasha regime and their families, brothers, sisters, wives," police spokeswoman Tanja Petric told AFP.

Zinajic was now 89 years old and believed to be living in neighbouring Serbia, she said.

He was suspected of ordering the "Partizan" communist forces to start a fire in front of a cave, leading to the deaths of 15 civilians who had been herded inside in February 1945.

The other victims listed in his war crimes indictment were executed shortly after the war ended.

Police said evidence against Zinajic included descriptions of the executions in letters that he had sent to then Communist Party superiors.

Communist forces killed many accused of being collaborators of the Ustasha after the fall of the fascist regime that was backed by Nazi Germany.

World News (EAA) - AFP

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