Vatican City - Pope John Paul has decreed that the late Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac of Croatia, who was imprisoned in Yugoslavia after the second World War, was a martyr. Cardinal Stepinac will be beatified when the Pope visits Croatia in October.
In 1945, the cardinal was sentenced to 16 years of hard labour for allegedly supporting the Nazi-backed Ustasha fascists. He died under house arrest in 1960.