A Croatian World War Two war crimes suspect said in a television interview he had ordered deportations of Jews and Serbs during World War Two, but only to their homelands and not to death camps in Croatia.

"Nothing ever happened to whoever was a loyal citizen of the Croatian state. For others, my theory was: You are not a Croat, you hate Croatia, okay, then please go back to you homeland," 95-year old Milivoj Asner told Croatian state television in an interview at his home in Klagenfurt, Austria.

Asner went to Austria when a Nazi-tracking group found him living in Croatia in 2005. He was filmed recently mingling with European championship soccer fans in Klagenfurt.

Zagreb has sought Asner's handover for trial on suspicion of orchestrating persecution of Serb, Jewish and Roma people under Croatia's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime during World War Two, when thousands of non-Croats perished in local death camps.

Austria rejected the request, saying Asner's physical and mental health was fragile.

The Croatian television reporter who conducted the interview said Asner appeared senile and was only temporarily lucid.

But Asner said he was ready to appear before the Croatian court.

"I'm deeply convinced that the judges, if they are honest people, would acquit me as I'm a Croat," Asner said in the interview broadcast on Thursday evening.

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center considers Asner the
fourth most wanted Nazi at large and says he was a senior Ustasha security official during the war.

The Jerusalem-based organisation said its director Ephraim Zuroff had written to Austrian Justice Minister Maria Berger renewing a request for Asner's extradition to his homeland.

Jewish groups have long accused Austria, which was annexed by Hitler in 1938 and supplied his Third Reich with many top officials, of a lack of political will to punish Nazi criminals.

Vienna has cited problems unearthing evidence compounded by the passage of time and ill health of suspects.

haaretz.com