Dacic was quoted by the Serbian news agency Beta as saying that the termination of Purda's prosecution must be accompanied by strong insistence regarding Serbs who he said were suspected and convicted of war crimes with no proof in Croatia.

The minister said that Serbia could not drop the cases of Purda and Bosnian Ejup Ganic while at the same time "hundreds of people are on so-called indictments", adding that Serbia as well must care about its citizens.

The Beta news agency also quoted opposition politician Aleksandar Vucic as saying that Serbia "is defeated and humiliated" by the latest moves of the top Serbian agencies which dropped the charges against Purda.

A state secretary at the Serbian Justice Ministry, Slobodan Homen, said on Thursday the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office had done the right thing in the case of Croatian war veteran Purda, stressing that the executive authorities should not interfere in judicial proceedings or the prosecutor's decisions.

Homen said the judiciary and the Prosecutor's Office should clearly establish who took part in the war and who committed war crimes.

"On the other hand, if the Prosecutor's Office established that it did not have sufficient evidence that Purda committed the crime, I think the decision of the Prosecutor's Office is right not only in terms of the independence of our judiciary but also in terms of good neighbourly cooperation," the Serbian news agency Tanjug quoted him as saying.