"It was not a classic example of abduction as abductors demanded nothing from Margetic nor did they threaten. The police have launched an investigation against unknown perpetrators on suspicion that they committed a crime of unlawfully denying Mergetic freedom," the spokeswoman for the Zagreb police told Hina on Sunday evening.
The spokeswoman added that today shortly after noon Margetic had come to a police station and told the police that he had been detained in the past two days. He was interviewed by the police until 20:00 hrs and after that he was allowed to go home.
"He was not injured, he did not complain that he had been harassed. He told the police that he did not know why and where he had been detained," Vulama said. She declined to say anything more on the entire case, and only added that the public would be informed about at a regular press conference on Monday.
Margetic today did not ask for police protection.
His family reported him missing to the police at about 22:00 hrs Saturday. The family contacted a police station on Saturday evening, saying he had last been seen on December 17. The police then launched an investigation.
A man who introduced himself as Domagoj Margetic called Hina at about 13:00 hrs Sunday and said he was going to a police station in Zagreb. He said he had been "held in detention" by unknown men since Friday and was released at about 05:00 hrs Sunday.
The Novo Hrvatsko Slovo weekly reported on Saturday that its editor had been arrested and taken to an unknown location and that he had been under constant police surveillance over the past few days. The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Zlatko Mehun, immediately refuted that report.
The police summoned Margetic for an interview about three weeks ago following an order by the Office of the Public Prosecutor, which in turn was prompted by a request from the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague at the beginning of December that the weekly stop publishing statements and testimonies of protected witnesses, Mehun said. The spokesman said that Margetic had not responded to the summons, but that the police had taken no action against him since no such order came from the Public Prosecutor.