Zagreb - Dinko Sakic, a former commander of Croatia's most notorious Nazi-era concentration camp during World War II, has died at age 86, news reports said Monday.

Sakic was in charge during May-October 1944 at the Jasenovac camp, where tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and others died under the Ustasha regime, Croatia's
1941-45 Nazi puppet government.

He died late Sunday at a prison hospital in Zagreb, the capital, local media reported.

Sakic was extradited to Croatia from Argentina in 1998 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes, the maximum sentence under Croatian law. He was convicted of personally executing 20 prisoners and ordering the execution and torture of many others.

He was put in a comfortable prison cell with television and a computer he used to write his memoirs. He was allowed to visit his wife Nada several times a month in a retirement home in Croatia.

His wife was a guard at a women's concentration camp in Stara Gradiska, which was part of Jasenovac, a complex of five camps on the Sava river south of Zagreb. She was also put on trial but never convicted because no one could testify that she killed anyone.

In an interview with a Croatian daily in 1995, Sakic bragged with his deeds at the camp and said he would do them all over again if needed.

Jasenovac's death toll remains in dispute, especially between Serbs and Croats. Most Jasenovac victims were Serbs, but Yugoslav Jews, Roma and Croats who opposed the Ustasha were also killed.

The most reliable estimates say 45,000-52,000 Serbs and 8,000-20,000 Jews died at the camp, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Estimates for the total number of Serbs killed by the Ustasha run between 56,000 and 1 million. (dpa)