On July 17, an investigation was opened into Branimir Glavas, one of the most influential Croatian politicians in 15 years. A long-term member of Parliament, general in the Croatian army and one of the founders of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the party of former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, Glavas is charged with committing war crimes against Serbian civilians from 1991-1992 while he was in charge of defending Osijek, the fourth largest city in Croatia. He may not take the fall alone. Serious accusations have been brought against Glavas by Krunoslav Fehir, former member of the unit Glavas commanded during the war. Fehir is accusing him of having arrested and mistreated Serbian civilians and issuing execution orders in at least one case. These civilians were subject to extremely cruel treatment. They were beaten, tortured and forced to drink sulfuric acid from batteries stored in the garages where they were held. Fehir, who was only sixteen and a half when he joined Glavas's unit, also helped murder one of these civilians. In July 2005, he decided to tell his story first to the public prosecutor in Zagreb and then to the press. He is currently living under police protection far from Osijek.

Concerned that the investigation might be biased, the Zagreb prosecutor's office sent Vladimir Faber, an experienced police investigator, to head up a special investigation team. After ten months of investigating and interviewing hundreds of witnesses, Faber's team has gathered an impressive thousand plus pages of documentation. In April 2006, they handed the documents over to the prosecutor who announced his intention to bring charges against Glavas and Fehir. Glavas's parliamentary immunity was lifted in May and on July 5, the Zagreb court of appeal denied Glavas's appeal contesting the investigation. Thus, the case can now proceed.

The Glavas case will be based on evidence gathered by three different prosecution teams. In addition to the investigation conducted by the national police, the Croatian court will also use evidence gathered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which conducted an investigation into Glavas but in the end dropped the case as part of its strategy to conclude all its trials by the end of 2008. Zagreb can also draw from the investigation conducted by the Serbian prosecutor's office, which has already sent all its files to the Croatian court. There will be 45 prosecution witnesses, plus defense witnesses. If Glavas is indicted and brought to trial, he will face a 5 to 20-year prison sentence.

The Glavas case is intended to be a sign of Croatia's determination to investigate all war crimes committed, including the crimes against Croatians Serbs committed by Croats. Until now, this had seemed impossible. Back when he was chief justice of the Supreme Court, Milan Vukovic, now a Constitutional Court judge, declared: "The Croats, because they where defending [their] own country, couldn't commit war crimes." Glavas denies committing these crimes and feels that the case against him is purely political. During the middle of last year, Glavas was ousted from the HDZ party following a dispute with the party leadership. He claims this episode is behind the case against him. While most analysts reject Glavas's claims, they agree that his expulsion from the party was an important factor in initiating the investigation. Outside of the protective umbrella of his party, Glavas found himself isolated. Even his former co-fighter Fehir said that he would not have testified against Glavas if Glavas had remained in the governing party.

Consequently, Glavas has declared that if he has to stand trial, he will not go down alone. "If I am responsible for what was happening in Osijek, then so is Seks himself," he said, citing the current president of the Croatian parliament. A longtime friend of Glavas, Seks was president of the Crisis Unit for Eastern Croatia during the war. Glavas now says that Seks was also his superior at the time of the crimes and that Sek's office was just one floor above his in the same building.

Seks's implication in a war crimes case has seriously shaken up the political scene in Croatia. The Parliament's opposition leader and former Socialist Prime Minister, Ivica Racan, and the president of another Parliamentary party have called for Seks to step down as president of the Parliament. They claim that it is not good for a country that wants to become a member of the European Union to have one of its top three leaders implicated in war crimes. The Glavas trial could start at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. With Croatia's upcoming elections in 2007, the trial could be a serious liability for Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and his HDZ party, since Seks is not only president of the Parliament, but one of the HDZ's most senior leaders.