"If the Croatian parliament passes the government-sponsored bill, regional cooperation will be brought back to square one with a single political decision. The judiciary would back away, politics is stronger, and this is a very bad message," the paper quoted him as saying.

War criminals could rub their hands again and be safe within the borders of the new states, said Vukcevic.

He said the principle of impunity would trump the principle of justice in Croatia, adding that this "is unacceptable in civilisation terms, regardless of how much the election campaign has advanced" in Croatia.

Speaking of his office's indictment against Croatian officials and war veterans over alleged war crimes committed in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar, Vukcevic said the "Seks et al." case was discussed at a meeting of the Serbian and Croatian judiciaries in Zagreb.

"We agreed then that we would comb through all the cases from the time of the military judiciary and return them to the framework of the evidence sharing agreement from 2006. European legal standards stipulate universal jurisdiction and our law on war crimes trials has adopted that," Vukcevic was quoted as saying.

The Croatian government on Thursday sent to parliament a bill declaring null and void all legal documents of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), its judicial bodies, the judicial authorities of the former Yugoslavia and those of Serbia in which Croatian citizens are suspected, accused or convicted of crimes relating to the Homeland War.