ZAGREB, September 22, 2018 - The leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Friday evening that the party's main committee had concluded by consensus that all war crimes that had occurred in Croatia should be investigated, notably those in Vukovar and Ovćara, but that it did not want the protest Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava planned to hold in that town over inefficiency in war crimes prosecution to be politicised or manipulated.

ZAGREB, September 19, 2018 - Prime Minister and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Andrej Plenković called on Tuesday for preventing politicisation and manipulation of Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava's plan to organise a protest rally against inefficiency in war crimes investigations, stressing that Penava's plan had taken on dimensions in the public sphere that did not necessarily concern only the identification of war criminals.

ZAGREB, September 14, 2018 - Vukovar mayor Ivan Penava held talks with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković in Zagreb on Friday, saying afterwards that a protest in the eastern town he announced for October 13 was not a protest against Plenković.

ZAGREB, September 12, 2018 - Minister for Veterans' Affairs Tomo Medved said on Wednesday that convicted war criminal Tomislav Merčep was serving his prison sentence in the Krapinske Toplice spa on doctor's recommendation.

ZAGREB, September 9, 2018 - A ceremony was held in the central town of Gospić on Sunday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Croatian military and police operation in the Medak area.

ZAGREB, September 9, 2018 - Justice Minister Dražen Bošnjaković on Saturday responded to criticism from Vukovar mayor Ivan Penava over unsolved war crimes and the war missing, saying his ministry neither prosecuted nor made decisions but created conditions so the justice system could do a better job.

ZAGREB, September 8, 2018 - Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava called on Saturday on all the residents of the easternmost town and the whole Croatian public to take part in a peaceful protest in Vukovar on October 13, against what he called the shameful silence of Croatian institutions. "I want the protest to be peaceful, apolitical, without party insignia, for the affirmation of fundamental human rights," he told reporters.

Deputy editor-in-chief of the Index.hr website comments on latest events.

ZAGREB, August 1, 2018 - The eastern Croatian town of Dalj on Wednesday commemorated the 27th anniversary of the death of 39 Croatian soldiers killed by Serb rebels, supported by the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). In the massacre, 20 Croatian police officers, 15 soldiers and four Civil Defence members lost their lives.

ZAGREB, July 6, 2018 - Croatia's Supreme Court has reduced the 15-year prison sentence to 13.5 years for Dragan Vasiljković aka Captain Dragan, wartime commander of a Serb paramilitary unit, for war crimes committed against Croatian soldiers and civilians during the 1991-1995 war of independence.