“There are no legal obstacles to the investigation and prosecution of suspected Nazi war criminals, but whose efforts (or lack thereof) have resulted in complete failure during the period under review, primarily due to the absence of political will to proceed and/or a lack of the requisite resources and/or expertise,” the Simon Wiesenthal Center says in its report.

The Center, named after a famous Nazi-hunter, gave Croatia a F-2 mark which means failure in practice. Australia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine also received the same mark.

The report particularly singled out Hungary for failing to apprehend a well known Nazi officer.

“The most disappointing result in a specific case during the period under review has been Hungary’s failure hereto to bring to justice Dr. Sandor Kepiro, one of the officers who carried out the mass murder of hundreds of civilians in Novi Sad, Serbia on January 23, 1942 who was convicted but never punished for the crime and who was exposed by the Wiesenthal Centre living in Budapest in the summer of 2006,” the report points out.

Serbia, Austria and Poland received a C mark, reserved for countries with some but still insufficient results.

The top A mark was given to the United States, among 30 countries covered by the report from April 1 2007 to March 31 2008.

The only Croat on the Centre’s list of most wanted Nazis is Milivoj Asner, who was the police chief in the Croatian town of Slavonska Pozega, during the Second World War and suspected, according to the report, of having an “active role in persecution, deportation and deaths of hundreds of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies.”

Croatia indicted Asner and in 2005 requested the then 92-year-old’s extradition from Austria.

Vienna “initially refused the request because he ostensibly held Austrian citizenship. But when it emerged that he had lost his Austrian citizenship, his extradition was refused on medical grounds,” said the report.