Croatian War Criminal Mercep to be Released on Parole

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a ruling allowing Tomislav Mercep, a former Croatian interior ministry assistant and unofficial commander of a reservist police battalion nicknamed the 'Mercepovci' ('Mercep's Men') to be released on parole.

The Supreme Court said in a statement that since August 2019, when a previous parole request was denied, the situation had changed because Mercep's health had "significantly worsened".

"He has not been convicted before… and the prisoner is fully complying with the house rules of the penitentiary," the statement said.

It added that the "purpose of punishment had been fully fulfilled" by the amount of time that Mercep has served so far.

In February 2017, the Supreme Court sentenced Mercep to seven years in prison, increasing his sentence from the five-and-a-half years that Zagreb County Court gave him in May 2016.

Merčep izlazi na uvjetnu, mora se javljati policiji svaki mjesechttps://t.co/EEpb79AcTP pic.twitter.com/rCUiBtRxwj

— 24sata (@24sata_HR) March 11, 2020

Mercep was convicted of not preventing the Mercepovci from detaining, torturing and killing several dozen mainly Serb civilians at the Zagreb Trade Fair, Kutina in central Croatia and Pakracka Poljana in western Slavonia in late 1991.

A total of 46 civilians were killed by the Mercepovci, three went missing and have not been found, and six were tortured but survived.

The victims included a Serb family, 12-year-old Aleksandra Zec and her two parents, who were killed by the unit in Zagreb in December 1991.

Although members of Mercep's unit were arrested soon after the killings, in 1992, they were later released due to procedural issues, although they admitted the crimes.

The...