SKOFIJE/STINJAN, Jan 13 (Hina) - After nine and a half years, a former JNA pilot and head of the 185th fighter-bomber squad headquarters at the then JNA airport in Pula, Tomislav Bozovic, returned to Croatia on Saturday after the
Croatian authorities in December last year discontinued an almost decade-long investigation against him on suspicion of crimes against the Croatian state, including war crime against civilians. On December 20, 2000 the Pula County Court discontinued the investigation against Bozovic due to lack of evidence. The former JNA pilot lived for the last ten years in Italy, where he worked as in a shop near the Italian-Slovene border. Croatia issued an international arrest warrant after him in 1992 but Italian authorities did not hand him over. Bozovic was welcomed at the Italian-Slovene border by his family from Stinjane near Pula and MP Damir Kajin. Present at the reunion w
SKOFIJE/STINJAN, Jan 13 (Hina) - After nine and a half years, a
former JNA pilot and head of the 185th fighter-bomber squad
headquarters at the then JNA airport in Pula, Tomislav Bozovic,
returned to Croatia on Saturday after the Croatian authorities in
December last year discontinued an almost decade-long
investigation against him on suspicion of crimes against the
Croatian state, including war crime against civilians.
On December 20, 2000 the Pula County Court discontinued the
investigation against Bozovic due to lack of evidence.
The former JNA pilot lived for the last ten years in Italy, where he
worked as in a shop near the Italian-Slovene border. Croatia issued
an international arrest warrant after him in 1992 but Italian
authorities did not hand him over.
Bozovic was welcomed at the Italian-Slovene border by his family
from Stinjane near Pula and MP Damir Kajin.
Present at the reunion were numerous domestic and foreign
reporters.
Bozovic and his family thanked MPs Damir Kajin and Furio Radin and
attorneys Milenko Ilic and Cedo Prodanovic, who, Bozovic said,
thanks to the understanding of Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic
and his predecessor Miroslav Separovic and with the support of
domestic and foreign human rights associations had helped
discontinue the proceedings and enabled his return to Croatia.
Attorney Ilic said the case was "a failed and rigged political court
process" during which no evidence for many severe criminal acts the
former authorities charged Bozovic with was found.
Croatia charged the former JNA pilot with war crimes against
civilians during the bombing of civilian targets in Slovenia 1991 -
a crime Slovenia never charged him with; the hijacking of the plane
which Croat emigrant Anton Kikas used to bring weapons for
Croatia's defence; an attack on Croatia's constitutional order and
the jeopardising of its territorial integrity as well as the
instigation of national hatred. The charge that he was a member of
the enemy army was subsequently dropped.
Attorney Ilic said the discontinuation of the process was the
result of "the change of political authority and the general
political atmosphere in Croatia."
Bozovic said the people to be blamed for his prosecution were "not
from Pula but from Zagreb, and they had to act the way they did due to
the policy which was dominant at the time." He said he was ready to
forgive them.
He also told reporters that he had left the former Yugoslav People's
Army in 1991 and returned to Pula as a civilian. Shortly after his
return, Croatian authorities arrested and exchanged him as a
prisoner of war with Yugoslavia. Bozovic left Yugoslavia for Italy,
where he lived for the past nine and a half years.
The former pilot said he was very happy to return to his homeland and
his family.
(hina) rml