War crimes conviction against Croat politician canceled

War crimes conviction against Croat politician canceled

ZAGREB -- Croatian Constitutional Court has overturned the ruling that the country's Supreme Court passed against Branimir Glavas.

Glavas is a former Croatian police official, army general, and member of parliament who was found guilty for committing war crimes against Serb civilians in the town of Osijek in 1991.

The Constitutional Court has ordered the Supreme Court to reopen the proceeding that upheld the ruling of the Zagreb County Court, sentencing Glavas to eight years in prison.

The court also overturned the judgments passed against others convicted in the same case, T-portal has reported.

Glavas' legal team filed the appeal over four years ago.

The ruling against Glavas was final, and found him guilty of committing war crimes against Serb civilians. The verdict was also confirmed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He is serving his sentence in Bosnia, where he fled shortly before the verdict was passed in May 2009. He holds dual Croatian-Bosnian citizenship.

Glavas has at this point served three-fifths of the prison sentence.

He was found guilty in the so-called Duct Tape Case for ordering members of a unit know as the SUS to arrest, torture and murder seven civilians.

Their bodies were thrown into the Drava River with their hands tied and duct tape placed over their mouths.

In the second case, known as "Garage" Glavas was convicted for the torture and murder of Cedomir Vuckovic and Djordje Petrovic in a garage of the Osijek Secretariat for National Defense, which he headed in 1991.

Glavas was the first Croatian politician to be convicted for war crimes.