The Croatian Constitutional Court has quashed a decision by the Zagreb County Court on launching an investigation against and placing in custody Josip Boljkovac on the suspicion that he is responsible for war crimes committed in 1945. Boljkovac is expected to be released from Zagreb's prison hospital on Tuesday evening.
Boljkovac's attorney Anto Nobilo told press the Constitutional Court took into account the argument from Boljkovac's complaint of unconstitutionality that decisions on the investigation against him and his detention were made by bodies that were not authorised to do it.
Nobilo said the Constitutional Court took into account the argument that the investigation into the former high-ranking official of the Yugoslav communist security agency OZNA and Croatia's first interior minister should have been conducted in line with the current Criminal Procedure Act instead of the old law.
This means that the investigation into Boljkovac should have been conducted by the State Prosecutor's Office and not the court.
Nobilo said the Constitutional Court's decision meant that Boljkovac was kept in custody unlawfully for almost a month. The attorney could not say before consulting with his client if they would sue the state and seek damages for Boljkovac's unlawful detention.
In the complaint to the Constitutional Court, Nobilo said that the case should have been dealt with in line with the new Criminal Procedure Act because before its entry into force no criminal proceedings were conducted against Boljkovac, and investigative activities were conducted against "an unknown perpetrator."
Applying the old legislation to his case puts Boljkovac in an unequal position in relation to all other citizens and decisions on the investigation against him and his detention violate the constitutional principle of the rule of law, Nobilo said in the complaint.
The 91-year-old Boljkovac was arrested on November 4 on suspicion of ordering the execution of 21 civilians in May 1945 at the Vidanka-Curak location near Karlovac, when he was a senior OZNA official. He dismissed the accusations before an investigating judge and was placed in one month's detention because of the gravity of the charges. After the defence appealed, the judge's decisions were upheld by a Zagreb County Court panel of judges.
Due to his old age and poor health Boljkovac was not in Zagreb's Remetinec prison but in the prison hospital.
