Croatian President Zoran Milanović stripped Branimir Glavaš, a convicted war criminal, of state decorations. The decision published in the Croatian Official Gazette states: “Branimir Glavaš is stripped of the following decorations of the Republic of Croatia: Order of Prince Trpimir with Collar and Danica, Order of Prince Domagoj with Collar, Order of Ban Jelačić, Order of Ante Starčević, Order of the Croatian Trefoil, Memorial of the Homeland War and Memorial of Homeland Gratitude.”
Numerous high decorations were taken away by the decision of the High Criminal Court of Croatia, according to which Glavaš’s verdict for war crimes became final on June 10, 2026. Namely, the court confirmed the seven-year prison sentence for Glavaš in the “Garage” and “Sellotape” cases, finding that he did not prevent the torture and abuse of civilians, one of whom, Čedomir Vučković, was forced to drink sulfuric acid that was poured into his mouth. Vučković begged and cried, but it is reported that the soldier who poured acid into his mouth insisted that he had to swallow it. Vučković died in terrible agony as a result of the severe chemical burns he suffered, which led to tissue destruction, erosion of the oral cavity, throat, esophagus and stomach. This caused internal bleeding, organ perforations, and finally suffocation and death.
Vučković, who lived with his wife in Osijek, disappeared on August 31, 1991. On that day, as his son Bogdan Vučković said, Čedomir went to the market and never returned home: “That was very unusual because he was a typical family man. It never happened that he did not come home at a certain time. My mother thought that he was still alive, that he was imprisoned somewhere, that someone had kept him. She went to look for him, inquired with the police, some military authorities, and humanitarian organisations.”
According to the court, Glavaš, the commander of the city’s defence at the time, ordered members of the Croatian Army to arrest a certain number of Serbs in Osijek who were then interrogated, accompanied by beatings and torture, about their alleged participation in the war. Their tortured bodies were found with their hands tied and their mouths taped shut before they were thrown into the Drava River.
The court established that in the period from July to September 1991, Glavaš ordered members of the army under his command to illegally detain Serbian civilians, who were then interrogated, severely beaten and tortured in Osijek basements and garages, and civilians Čedomir Vučković and Đorđe Petković were killed.
At the first trial, in 2009, Glavaš and the other defendants were sentenced to several years in prison, but the final verdict was annulled in 2015 by the Constitutional Court. By then Glavaš had already served most of his seven-year sentence in prisons in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), to which he escaped before the initial verdict was handed down. Glavaš claimed BiH citizenship in 2009, when he fled there shortly before the sentencing on the indictment for war crimes in Osijek. After the first conviction became final, Croatia demanded from BiH that Glavaš serve his prison sentence there because he was hiding there at the time.
The confirmation of Glavaš’s sentence and his referral for serving that sentence constitute the first legally concluded case implemented under the agreement between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on mutual assistance in criminal cases. That agreement made it impossible for persons convicted in one of the two countries to avoid serving their sentence by abusing dual citizenship. As a result, BiH citizenship did not save Glavaš from serving his sentence in BiH.
President Milanović has repeatedly stated, however, that Croatia will not extradite its war commanders to other countries. He’s not the only one to draw this line. No one in the region extradites “their commanders” convicted of war crimes because many do not see them as such. Milovanović’s statements are aimed at the indictments coming from neighbouring countries, such as Serbia, stressing that the Croatian authorities will not tolerate “judicial prosecutions and politically staged trials against Croatian generals who participated in the Homeland War.”
Last year, Croatian Defence Minister Ivan Anušić stated that he was not aware that crimes had been committed by Croatian soldiers. “As far as I know, both the prime minister and the president took a common position, and that position is mine and the entire Croatian public’s, that there are no new indictments, that the Croatian army did not commit war crimes, and especially not under command responsibility.”
According to the Treaty between the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on extradition, the two countries extradite their own citizens for serious crimes, including organised crime, corruption, and money laundering. However, this treaty excludes the extradition of one’s own nationals for war crimes, probably because such crimes are not considered “severe” enough. In the societies in which the post-war generations live and work, such a legal solution may make sense because, as Anušić stated, war criminals do not actually exist. Namely, the “homeland” and “liberation” wars fought in the territories of the former Yugoslavia can logically produce only heroes. Everything else counts, as President Milanović said, as a political set-up and a “staged process”.
Prison blues
Glavaš, like many of his colleagues, decided to shorten his time in Bosnian prisons between 2010 and 2015 by writing a book. The detention administration accepted his request at the time and allowed him to keep a laptop in his room, but without an internet connection. The working title of Glavaš’s book was “A Chronology of Political Persecution”, and in 2010 it already had about 150 pages. He was preparing to write about 400 pages, and he was convinced that he would find a publisher without difficulty, probably knowing that books by war criminals had become hits on the former Yugoslav market. Glavaš wanted to present himself as a worldly man, multicultural by definition, and not some radical nationalist. To that end he bragged that, in addition to writing a book, he had also been reading the Quran in his prison cell, and had already read half of it.
Glavaš holds citizenship of both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Like most war criminals, he crosses borders as needed, evading the law, verdicts, and judges, as well as victims and witnesses. However, most war criminals have had a bit more luck in the countries to which they fled than Glavaš did. The majority of them were not arrested by local police to serve sentences handed down in neighbouring states. For instance, Ilija Jurić – a war criminal convicted in BiH – has still not been arrested in Croatia to serve his prison sentence. Jurić was convicted back in 2017 for the rape of Lola, who, along with her three minor children, had been held in a detention camp with other Serb civilians in Odžak in 1992.
Jurić fled to Croatia before the appellate verdict was pronounced, effectively serving his six-year prison sentence while remaining at liberty. He also holds dual citizenship, Bosnian and Croatian. Both an Interpol Red Notice and a warrant from the Court of BiH have been issued for Jurić. It seems everyone is hot on his trail, yet this does not worry Jurić in the slightest. Judging by his Facebook profile, he has whiled away the time of his sentence fishing and making occasional visits to local taverns with his former wartime comrades. Like many of his associates, Jurić has no qualms about capturing these moments and posting them to his profile for any curious onlookers and his regular followers to see. Some, those particularly fond of Jurić, even “Like” them.
Escape from punishment
In January 2015, the Constitutional Court of Croatia annulled the final conviction, and the proceedings against Glavaš and his co-accused continued in 2017. The retrial was formally opened in October 2021. Although Glavaš was sentenced to 7 years in prison at the last trial, he left the courtroom as a free man in 2023. The first-instance verdict, which was recently confirmed by the High Criminal Court, was pronounced on October 27th, 2023, following a retrial at the Zagreb County Court. After the sentencing in October 2023, Glavaš was visibly upset by the verdict, which found him guilty of torturing and killing civilians in Osijek. He told the judge, “Shame on you, f**k you and your court,” and left the courtroom.
Glavaš left the courtroom and announced via social media that he had left Croatia and gone to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as he said, “Just in case. You never know what is in the minds of fools and judges.” To prove that every departure is not necessarily an escape, he also marked his location as Drinovci, a village in Bosnia. “I went to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I didn’t escape. I have two passports. I don’t want to live in Croatia anymore. I created this country, but I didn’t imagine it like this when I was putting my life on the line for it. They don’t have a single piece of evidence. This is a political setup. I have no intention of serving a single day in prison,” Glavaš said.
Judge Dražen Kevrić, after the last verdict passed on June 10th, 2026, explained that Glavaš had already served five years, two months and 27 days of his sentence. Although he still has more than a year of his sentence left, the court will decide how the remainder of his sentence will be served. After the final verdict was passed three weeks ago, Glavaš appeased the judicial authorities by telling them that this time he has no intention of fleeing to BiH again. “I’m not sure if I’ll even apply for early release. I’ll decide that later. If I don’t apply, they’ll still have problems with me in prison. I’m here in Osijek, and I have no intention of going anywhere,” Glavaš said after the verdict was handed down.
Take it and (don’t) give it back
In 2010, then-President Ivo Josipović stripped Glavaš of his war decorations, stating that the acts he was accused of “are contrary to the legal order and moral principles of the Republic of Croatia.” In 2021, Milanović returned the decorations and the rank of major general to Glavaš that Josipović took from him. Milanović did so because of the 2015 verdict of the Constitutional Court, which overturned his earlier conviction. On that occasion, he stated that he will have to repeat the confiscation procedure if Glavaš is convicted again. Since Glavaš was again legally convicted on June 10th, 2026, President Milanović stripped Branimir Glavaš of seven decorations once again, but not the rank of major general this time.
The marathon court proceedings against Glavaš, as the first politician in Croatia to be tried for war crimes, lasted almost 20 years, and were marked by numerous interruptions and repetitions of proceedings, as well as his escape to BiH, where he has citizenship. They were also marked by threats to his opponents as well as journalists who discovered his crimes. In 1996, Glavaš sent a Croatian investigative journalist, Drago Hedl, a message: “If you do not stop investigating war crimes, you will be reduced to dust and ashes.” Despite the threat, Hedl never stopped, and even went on to publish a book about Glavaš’s crimes.
In the course of this case, decorations were taken from Glavaš, returned, and taken again. A few days ago, he proudly announced on his Facebook profile that he possesses medals even more illustrious than the ones from the state – for what, after all, is a general without decorations? Glavaš decided to mask the blow to his masculine pride caused by the stripping of his own awards by displaying his father’s decorations. “From now on, for formal occasions, I will wear the medals awarded to my father by the Head of the NDH, Dr Ante Pavelić,” Glavaš boasted.
Peščanik.net, 02.07.2026.
