Wartime Assistant Interior Minister Tomislav Mercep has been put in 30-day custody and an investigation has been launched against him as he is suspected of the murder or disappearance of 43 people from the Zagreb, Kutina and Pakrac areas from October to mid-December 1991.
Detention has been set against the 58-year-old Mercep to prevent him from tampering with witnesses and because of the gravity of the crimes he is suspected of.
Zagreb County Court investigating judge Mirko Klinzic overruled the prosecutors' request to set detention against Mercep also because he is a flight risk.
The judge made the decision on detention and investigation after questioning Mercep in a prison hospital where he was transferred in a poor state of health brought on by an earlier stroke.
Some 40 witnesses will be heard in the investigation against Mercept, who decided to exercise his right to remain silent.
Mercep is accused of ordering unlawful arrests, torture and killing of civilians, as an advisor at the Interior Ministry and commander of the ministry's special reserve unit stationed in Pakracka Poljana and partly in a Zagreb warehouse, between October 8 and mid-December 1991.
He is also accused of failing to stop or prevent those crimes despite knowing that his subordinates were making unlawful arrests, robbing, abusing, torturing and killing civilians.
The prosecutor's office argues that 43 people were killed or went missing, while six survived the torture and abuse.
