Glavas Finally Behind Bars

One of the most powerful Croatian politicians of the past decade or so, and an independent member of the parliament, Branimir Glavas, was detained in Zagreb district prison on October 26, shortly after he was stripped of his immunity for the second time in the last five months.



Glavas, who was a mayor and defence commander in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek in the early days of the country’s 1991-1995 war, is being investigated in connection with two ongoing cases of having ordered the torture and killing of Serb civilians in Osijek in 1991.



One of the founders of the ruling Croatian Democratic union, HDZ, and a close ally of the late president Franjo Tudjman, 50-year-old Glavas is the highest-ranking Croatian official to be arrested in connection with war crimes so far. In Osijek and other parts of Croatia, especially Slavonia, he is still regarded as a hero for his role in the country’s war of independence.



Speaking to his friends at his Osijek home before he left for Zagreb to turn himself in, Glavas, a former army general, said, "I am embarking on a path which, at the time when we created the Croatian state, was unimaginable to me and all Croatian soldiers, and particularly those who lost their dearest ones.”



He also told the reporters he was not responsible for what he was charged with and that proceedings against him were politically motivated.



Glavas’s arrest this week marked the end of one of the most controversial legal and political affairs in Croatia’s recent history, which the country’s president, Stjepan Mesic, described as “a judicial scandal”.



The Croatian parliament's privileges and credentials committee initially stripped Glavas of his immunity in June this year, so that he could be investigated in connection with the murder of at least two Serb civilians and the unlawful detention and mistreatment of many others.



The investigation followed claims by Krunoslav Fehir, a former member of a Croatian unit under Glavas’s command, that the general ordered the extrajudicial executions of Serbs in Osijek.



But despite repeated requests from prosecutors to place him in custody because he posed a threat to witnesses, Glavas remained a free man.



Last week, six Croats from Osijek were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the killings of at least six Serbs in Osijek in 1991. This was dubbed in the local media as the “sellotape case”, because the victims’ hands were bound and their mouths taped. Their bodies were later found floating in a river.



Immediately after the arrest, state prosecution spokeswoman Martina Mihordin said Glavas has been linked to the case, but declined to comment further.



Glavas’s arrest this time seemed inevitable.



The privileges and credentials committee - the only body which can strip a parliamentary deputy of his immunity - first met on October 13 to discuss the Zagreb county court judge Zdenko Posavec's motion for Glavas's detainment. The same body decided last June that Glavas could be investigated in connection with the crimes in Osijek, but another ruling was necessary to make his arrest possible.



Even before the meeting was over, Glavas packed his bags and said bade farewell to his family, convinced he would be detained the same evening.



“They can lock my body, but never the spirit!” he was reported in the local media as saying.



However, the committee rejected Judge Posavec’s request, claiming he had made some procedural errors, much to the dismay of the judge, prosecutors and many Croatia’s politicians and independent observers.



The president of the Helsinki Committee in Croatia, Zarko Puhovski, said this situation showed “a lack of will and courage” on the part of Croatia’s judiciary to confront powerful politicians such as Glavas.



Former minister of justice Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic said in an interview for the Zagreb television Nova TV that this clearly showed the Croatian state is “strong towards the weak, and weak towards the strong”.



Shortly after the committee’s ruling, Mesic told the local media “there is no doubt that this is a judicial scandal”.



Finally, after four days of legal wrangling and another meeting of the privileges and credentials committee, Judge Posavec’s request for Glavas’s detention was granted on October 26, on the grounds that he could influence the witnesses and the gravity of the crime he is suspected of.



Only after the committee made this decision could Judge Posavec issue an order for the police to arrest Glavas.



The general turned himself in the same evening.



As the Croatian media reported, a day later Glavas went on a hunger strike in his prison cell in Zagreb, in order to draw the attention of the public to his case, which, as he continues to claim, is fabricated and politically motivated.



Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR contributor.