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. Early life and career Andrija Artuković was born on 19 November 1899, in Klobuk, near Ljubuški in Austro-Hungarian-occupied Herzegovina to Marijan and Ruža (née Rašić) Artuković. He was one of 14 siblings raised on a farm. He studied at a Franciscan gymnasium (high school) run by the monastery in nearby Široki Brijeg, and obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Zagreb in 1924. From 1926 he was practising law in Gospić in the Lika region of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Ustaše activities Artuković joined the Croatian nationalist and terrorist Ustaše organisation which had been formed in 1929 and in 1932, he was one of the organisers of their small Velebit uprising in Lika, which involved an attack on a Yugoslav gendarmerie station by a group of Ustaše. Artuković fled Yugoslavia before the uprising commenced, escaping via Rijeka to Venice on 31 August. On arrival in Italy, the poglavnik (supreme leader) of the Ustaše, Ante Pavelić, appointed Artuković as an adjutant to Main Ustaša Headquarters and commander of all Ustaše in Italy, and Artuković adopted the pseudonym "Hadžija" (pilgrim). The uprising he helped organise was quickly and brutally suppressed by the Yugoslav authorities, which brought the Ustaše some public attention and prestige. In Italy, Artuković came into conflict with a group of supporters of fellow Ustaša Mijo Babić (known as "Giovanni"). In late 1933, Artuković left the country. After that he went to Budapest then Vienna where he was arrested and briefly detained in March 1934 before being expelled from Austria. He returned to Budapest, then after meeting