In the key of equalizing the aggressor i victims, and the narrative about the symmetry of guilt, one must watch the court proceedings against Branimir Glavas. From those positions, he intimidated witnesses, tried to bribe judges of the Supreme Court, fled to Bosnia, where he duly received a high parliamentary privilege.
The trial of Branimir Glavaš, war commander of the defense of Osijek, Warlord, the ruthless master of life and death in the area of Eastern Slavonia during the war nineties, and the members of his paramilitary unit BOB (Branimir's Osijek Battalion), actually a secretly organized criminal group of dangerous scoundrels and murderers devoid of elementary human moral scruples, for the monstrous war crimes committed (aimed at intimidation, retaliation and illegal repression) against civilians, citizens of the Republic of Croatia of Serbian nationality, was finally brought to an end after almost 20 years and a series of obstructions. The High Criminal Court of the Republic of Croatia confirmed the first-instance verdict of the County Court in Zagreb, making it final: Glavaš was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison because, in violation of international law during the armed conflict, he failed to prevent torture, infliction of severe physical injuries, as well as inhumane treatment of civilians, as well as their illegal deprivation of liberty and imprisonment.
In addition, he ordered his subordinates to kill civilians, and to the immediate executors Dino Kontić and Zdravko Dragić, who were sentenced to three years in prison, these messages about arrests and liquidations were conveyed by Glavaš's secretary of war, Gordana Getoš (sentenced to four years). In order to cover up his crimes, of course with the support of the "deep state" - the radical right and Ustashoids from the ranks of the HDZ, certain veterans' associations, and influential individuals or groups from high judicial, military, church, police, business and other structures, as well as various tycoons who built their extremely dubious business empires by profiting from war, corruption scandals and privatization robbery (in which Glavaš himself unscrupulously participated and played a prominent role both as a prefect and as a parliamentary representative, i.e. one of the founders of the HDZ but also a long-time close associate of F. Tuđman, a man present at the very top of power and power for twenty years), Glavaš did not spare anything in order not to make sense and make a mockery of the judicial process and presented himself as a victim of political persecution by certain "anti-Croatian" power centers that are connected to the homeland with the international community and whose sole aim is allegedly to relativize the Great Serbian aggression against the Republic of Croatia, to portray the war as a conflict two equally responsible parties and thus to deny the defensive character of the Croatian people's war against Serbian aggression.
FUGITIVE IN THE STATE CRADLE
Therefore, to equate the aggressor and the victim, to promote a narrative about the symmetry of guilt and those who do not care about the truth about the "identity" historical and political interpretation of the Croatian struggle for freedom. And it is precisely in this context, the staunch nationalists claim, that the systematic prosecution of Branimir Glavaš and people who represented the symbol of Croatian defense, such as Tomislav Merčep in Vukovar, Đura Brodarc in Sisak, Mihajlo Hrastov in Karlovac, General Mirko Norac in Gospić, etc., should be observed. And from those positions, Glavaš exerted fierce pressure and intimidated witnesses, tried to bribe judges of the Supreme Court, faked a hunger strike and finally fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he still, although a fugitive before the judiciary of the Republic of Croatia, regularly received a high parliamentary allowance (including - to make the tragicomic paradox complete - compensation for living separated from his family) and without any obstacles, managed Osijek through his political ordinances county and party (HDSSB) in Parliament, which he founded after breaking up with Sanader.
And he did that later, from 2009, after he was wrongfully sentenced to ten years in prison, which he served on the basis of having dual citizenship (RH/BiH) in the prison in Zenica, i.e. Mostar, where the members of his party's leadership and parliamentary representatives came freely and regularly for consultations and held party meetings in the premises of this penitentiary institution without any obstacles. And that is precisely why he, as an "authentic hero of the Homeland War", found himself a target so that the ruling nomenclature would "blame" him as a dangerous opponent and competitor and ultimately definitely sweep him from the domestic political scene. All this allegedly started after his conflict with Ivo Sanader, the powerful Prime Minister of the Croatian Government who, according to Glavaš's conviction, sided with the interests of Brussels and the legal constructions and indictments of the Hague Tribunal against the will of the majority of the Croatian population, all in attempts to reinterpret the character of the Homeland War and at the expense of personal material and clientelistic, political gains.
RETURN TO THE POLITICAL SCENE
In fact, it was about their personal confrontation, because Glavaš and his "team" secured Sanader's victory in the internal party elections after Tuđman's death, and in return he did not get the expected position of Minister of Police. A schism was inevitable. In July 2010, the Supreme Court reduced Glavaš's sentence to eight, and his associates to five, i.e., four and three years in prison, so that after four years the Constitutional Court accepted Glavaš's appeal, annulled the verdict (in the opinion of the majority of constitutional judges, it was necessary to determine whether the crimes occurred before or after the international recognition of the Republic of Croatia) and thus, with a dubious legal equilibrium, enabled him to get out of prison (he was imprisoned for a total of five years and three months), and thus his participation at the head of the HDDSB in the parliamentary elections and re-entering the Parliament.
The non-governmental organization Documenta - Center for Facing the Past reacted sharply, stressing that the decision was made "for state-building and political reasons, not international legal reasons." Although he was not acquitted, it was actually a triumphant return of B. Glavaš to the Croatian political scene, regardless of the fact that in 2017 a retrial was scheduled for the same case before the Zagreb County Court, which lasted for the next six years. Glavaš and the other defendants were found guilty again, but their sentences were reduced compared to the previous proceedings, which the DORH (prosecutor's office) complained about, considering them too lenient for the serious war crimes committed, colloquially known as "garage" (C. Vučković, one of the detainees, was tortured by BOB members by forcing him to drink acid from a battery, and then shot him) and "duct tape" (at least ten people were arrested, tortured in a private house in the center of Osijek and finally killed with a bullet in the back of the head on the banks of the Drava River with his hands and mouth tied with duct tape).
During the pronouncement of the invalid verdict, Glavaš again, who knows how many times, showed himself in all the "luxuries" of his arrogance and primitivism, telling the judge and the jury that he was "fucking them", and he would sue all those who would call him a war criminal, demanding huge financial compensation for "mental pain", including the author of this text (with whom he lost the dispute), referring to the fact that there is no legal basis for this, because there is no final judgment either.
He provoked the public with numerous pranks: he took a picture under the picture of Ante Pavelić, used offensive language to settle accounts with everyone he thought had betrayed him, etc. But now, if nothing else, we can finally call him without consequence what this malignant fellow really is: a war criminal who faked his entire impersonal biography in the manner of a notorious liar and cheat. Thus, for example, he acquired the status of a war invalid not during the defense of Osijek, in which he had no real role, but after he crashed his car far from the front line after a while. After all, he never explained how he came into possession of a huge apartment in the city center, who he evicted and under what circumstances, with what money and how shamefully cheaply he paid it off.
GLAVAŠ'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE "DEFENSE OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA"
And that is only a detail in a series of his scandalous actions in amassing great personal wealth and property, as well as unquestionable social power, which he still, despite everything, continues to have at his disposal. For various, mostly (un)justified reasons, the High Criminal Court, which received the appeal in 2023, did not resolve the case until the beginning of 2025, and the defendants appealed to the Supreme Court, believing that their "rights to a trial within a reasonable time were violated." And after that, the Supreme Court obliged the VKS to issue a final verdict by mid-March 2026 at the latest, in which, as we read, aggravating circumstances (gravity and brutality of the crime, number of victims, etc.) are cited, as well as mitigating circumstances, including the contribution of Glavaš and his criminogenic gang to the "defense of the Republic of Croatia".
Are committed war crimes included in the contribution? Does the contribution include the violent expulsion of citizens of Serbian nationality from their apartments, the blowing up of their cars and/or business premises, in order to intimidate and/or drive them out of the city, the country? The systematic destruction of the monuments of the anti-fascist struggle is a social shame, not a contribution to defense. If it wasn't tragic, it would be comical.
Glavaš announces that "the legal battle continues": he will address the Constitutional Court, and then the court in Strasbourg, and further proceedings will reveal more when he will officially receive the verdict and when the competent enforcement judge will determine the date for him to serve the remaining part of his sentence, because only then will he have the right (if he wishes) to submit a request for parole. With the final verdict, the question was raised (Documenta and the Anti-Fascist League of the Republic of Croatia) about what the president of the state Zoran Milanović will do, who returned Glavaš in 2021 by the decision of the president Ivo Josipović in 2010, stripped of his general rank and state decorations. The president justified his decision by saying that he was dealing with a "formally unconvicted person" (who, by the way, publicly supported him during the presidential campaign). Now, when the "Knight of the Slavonian Plain" (as Glavaš was beaten in the war) was legally judged as a war criminal, will he act according to the law and again strip him of his decorations and rank "and all rights related to that basis"? Milanović is on the move, he has the last word, he must assess whether the verdict against Glavaš represents "action contrary to the legal order of the Republic of Croatia or Croatian moral values", whatever that means. But, as we have already learned, neither with Glavaš, nor with Milanović, surprises never end.
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