"This was not a hunger strike because my father wants to live, testify and tell the truth in the proceedings against him, but he is protesting because we can't reach him," Matija Boljkovac said, voicing concern about his father's health.

The 91-year-old Boljkovac was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of ordering the execution of 21 civilians in May 1945 when he was a senior official in the then Yugoslav Communist security agency OZNA. He dismissed the accusations before an investigating judge and was placed in one month's detention because of the gravity of the charges. An investigation has been launched.

Nobilo said his client resumed eating this afternoon and that he was taken to the prison hospital in Zagreb.

Department of Corrections chief Branko Peran confirmed that Boljkovac was taken to the prison hospital because of his condition and advanced age. In the afternoon, he said that no inmate in Zagreb's prison had begun refusing meals in the last couple of days.

Boljkovac's son said Zoran Pusic of the Civic Committee on Human Rights and about 100 other people had contacted him to help in the protection of his father's human rights, and that People's Party (HNS) vice president Vesna Pusic had told him that she would inform the diplomatic corps in Zagreb about his father's prosecution and possible violation of his human rights.