Speaking on behalf of the HDZ Club of Deputes in a debate on the MIP reports approving the detention and investigation of Glavas, Seks said that his party had decided not to support Glavas's detention on grounds of the gravity of the crime because of uneven judicial practice in court proceedings against persons charged with war crimes against civilians.
Late last month the MIP approved requests to strip Glavas of his immunity so that he could be remanded in custody and prevented from exerting his influence on witnesses in the so-called garage case. At the same session, the commission also granted a request to lift his immunity on grounds of the gravity of the crime he is suspected of.
On Tuesday, Zagreb County Court investigating judge Zdenko Posavec, who has been conducting the investigation into the garage case since June, ordered that Glavas be remanded in custody on grounds of the gravity of the crime.
Seks said the HDZ had learned that the Osijek County Court was currently conducting proceedings against eight accused, six former members of Serb paramilitary units and two former members of Croatian armed forces, all of whom were at large.
Some of them attend court hearings and go back home, while some have been sentenced for war crimes against civilians and are at home awaiting appeal.
It is evident that people who have been charged or who have been sentenced pending appeal are not in court custody, while Glavas is in detention and his case is at an investigation stage, Seks said, adding that account should also be taken of the constitutional provision under which everyone should be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
We want equal treatment for everyone, and we appeal to courts to make their practice uniform, Seks said.
Seks said that the HDZ would neither support the MIP's decision to put Glavas in custody in the so-called Sellotape case (murders of Serb civilians by the Drava river in Osijek in 1991), but that it would support the launching of an investigation against Glavas in that case.
Seks rejected allegations that the Glavas case was politically motivated, saying that the decision to launch proceedings against Glavas had been made autonomously by the judicial authorities and that the legislative and executive authorities had not interfered in the case.
The MIP reports were also debated by other parliamentary parties.