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Toronto (JTA) — A Croa-
tian priest wanted by
Yugoslavia for war crimes
committed against Serbs
during World War II has
been living in Niagara Falls,
Ontario, since 1956, two
internationally known Nazi
hunters charge.
According to documents
cited by former United
States Justice Department
lawyer John Loftus and
Australian TV journalist
Mark Aarons, Yugoslavia
wrote to Britain in July 1947
requesting the extradition of
the Rev. Karlo Dragutin
Petranovic, who is now 80.
The two investigators
devote six pages to
Petranovic in their recently
released book, Ratlines: How
the Vatican's Nazi Networks
Betrayed Western Intel-
ligence to the Soviets, publish-
ed by William Heinemann
Ltd. of London and distribu-
ted in Canada by Butter-
worths.
In 1947, Monsignor
Petranovic was living in
Genoa, Italy —then part of
Britain's postwar occupation
zone. He was active in a
church-run escape network
that ferried hundreds of
Nazi fugitives out of Europe
to refuge in North and South
America and Australia.
Msgr. Petranovic was a
captain in the Ustashi army
of Croatia, a puppet state set
up by the Nazis in 1941, the
authors claim. A parish
priest in the mixed Croatian
and Serbian district of
Ogulin prior to the war, he
was serving as a chaplain in
the Yugoslav army when the
Nazis invaded in April 1941.
He returned there follow-
ing the collapse of
Yugoslavia and the procla-
mation of Croatian in-
dependence, and was ap-
pointed deputy to the local
Ustashi leader. The Ogulin
district, where Msgr.
Petranovic remained
throughout the war, was the
scene of some of fascist
Croatia's most brutal and
widespread massacres of its
Serbian minority. Under
dictator Ante Pavelic, the
Ustashi regime slaughtered
over half a million Serbs,
Gypsies and Jews at sites
like the infamous Jasenovac
concentration camp.
Yugoslavia's extradition
request noted that
Petranovic "became a very
important factor in the
policy of the local Ustashi
regime, which decided on the
life and death of the Serbs of
Ogulin and the surrounding
district. As evidence shows,
this policy consisted of terror
against the entirely inno-
cent Serbian population,
resulting in the extermina-
tion of about 2,000 local
Serbs."
The documents cited in the
book, discovered by Loftus
and Aarons in the Public
Record Office in London,
contain allegations that
Msgr. Petranovic personally
organized and instigated
several atrocities in the
summer of 1941.
On one occasion, the
Yugoslays claim, he directed
the arrest and execution of
70 prominent Serbs. An-
other time, the priest was
allegedly responsible for the
removal of five or six Ser-
He was active in a
church-run escape
network that
ferried hundreds of
Nazi fugitives out
of Europe.
bian patients from the
Ogulin hospital, who were
then killed "in the most
brutal circumstances."
A third incident cited in
the report was the murder of
Dr. Branko Zivanovic on
July 31, 1941, "on the basis
of a false statement made by
Petranovic."
The extradition request
details Msgr. Petranovic's
alleged role in the persecu-
tion and despoliation of
Serbs in several villages in
the district. It concludes by
claiming that, in "addition
to these crimes, the Ustashi
committee at Ogulin, of
which Msgr. Petranovic was
an active functionary, is
responsible for sending hun-
dreds of local Serbs and
Croats to the Ustashi con-
centration camps, which
resulted in the extermina-
tion of the majority of
them."
In a taped interview with
Mr. Loftus and Mr. Aarons,
Msgr. Petranovic adamantly
denied ever having been a
member of the Ustashi. He
conceded that he had lived in
Ogulin during the war
years, but denied any
knowledge of massacres
there. When pressed further,
he recalled that he "heard
rumors that people were dy-
ing, and there were one or
two Jews in Ogulin, but I
don't know what happened
to them. They just disap-
peared."