The panel of judges turned down the appeal as groundless, the spokesman for the county court, Kresimir Devcic told Hina on Monday, adding that the panel of judges did not think that the suspect was obstructing the investigation launched into his role in 1991 war crimes in the eastern city of Osijek.
Monday's ruling is final, and the prosecution has no right to appeal again. The court explained that the prosecution failed to prove that Glavas was influencing the witnesses whom prosecutors proposed to be interviewed during the investigation.
Last Friday, the investigating judge Zdenko Posavec rejected the request by the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor to detain Glavas, who is a member of parliament and a local official in Osijek.
The prosecution filed the detention request saying that Glavas had affected future witnesses by publishing a report from the ongoing war crimes investigation against him. The investigating judge rejected the request on grounds that the parties to the case had signed a statement pledging that they would not disclose details of the investigation to the public, whereby the secrecy of the proceedings was guaranteed, the spokesman Devcic told reporters on that occasion.
After a hearing on 17 July, Glavas circulated two witness statements to the press and posted them on his Internet site. This prompted the investigating judge to request the parties to the case to sign a statement pledging they would not reveal details of the investigation to the public.
Glavas is charged with ill-treating three ethnic Serb civilians in Osijek in 1991 and murdering another two, one of whom disappeared without trace.