A Croatian man has been handed a 15-month suspended sentence for giving a Nazi salute at an annual commemoration in Austria of a 1945 massacre of pro-Nazi Croats
BERLIN (AP) — A Croatian man has been handed a 15-month suspended sentence for giving a Nazi salute at an annual commemoration in Austria of a 1945 massacre of pro-Nazi Croats.
The Austria Press Agency reported Tuesday that the state court in the southern city of Klagenfurt convicted the 51-year-old under a law banning the glorification of Nazi ideology.
The defendant said he was drunk, and had given the salute of the pro-fascist soldiers known as Ustashas when he saw a Croatian flag with the symbol of the armed forces.
He said friends talked him into going to the controversial May 12 event in Bleiburg.
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Tens of thousands of Croatians fled to Bleiburg in May 1945, only to be turned back from Austria by the British military and into the hands of anti-fascists.