Artuković, Andrija, 1899-1988

Andrija Artuković (19 November 1899 – 16 January 1988) was a Croatian lawyer, politician, and senior member of the ultranationalist and fascist Ustasha movement, who served as the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice in the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II in Yugoslavia. He signed into law a number of racial laws against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and was responsible for a string of concentration camps in which over 100,000 civilians were tortured and murdered. He escaped to the United States after the war, where he lived until extradited to Yugoslavia in 1986. He was tried and found guilty of a number of mass killings in the NDH, and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and health. He died in custody in 1988.