ZAGREB COUNTY COURT RECEIVES SUGGESTION ON INVESTIGATION ACTIVITIES AGAINST SEPAROVIC

ZAGREB, June 11 (Hina) - The Zagreb County Court on Friday received a suggestion from the Municipal State Attorney's Office on initiating "certain investigation activities" against a former head of the Croatian Information Service (HIS), Miroslav Separovic, and a HIS employee Mario Baljkas, investigating judge Mirjana Rigljan said on Friday. Since the Municipal State Attorney's Office has not suggested detention for Separovic and Baljkas, no investigating judge to conduct the proceedings has been determined yet. This will probably be done on Monday, June 14, said Rigljan. Rigljan could not say what the content of the Municipal State Attorney's Office's suggestion was, but she added the suggestion to initiate investigation activities, usually applied in case of criminal acts which are punished with up to three years in prison, was "milder" than a suggestion on initiating an investigation. Investigation activities can mean that persons against whom criminal charges have been pressed or new witnesses will be additionally interrogated, or that additional documents necessary for solving the case will have to be gathered. After they took Separovic and Baljkas to the Zagreb police station and interrogated them, the police pressed charges against the two men for suspicion that they had committed a criminal act of disclosing an official secret, for which the law envisages prison sentences ranging from three months to three years. However, if the act was committed for personal gain, if the information revealed was a top secret, or if the act was committed so that information could be published or used in a foreign country, the law envisages sentences of one to ten years in prison. According to the Penal Code, an official secret is a piece of information obtained and used by public bodies, and declared an official secret by a law, some other regulation or a general act of competent bodies, adopted in line with the law. (hina) jn rml