Warcrimes suspect elected to Croatia's parliament

A former Croatian lawmaker tried here for war crimes against ethnic Serbs during the country's 1991-1995 war was re-elected to parliament in this weekend's legislative elections, results showed Monday.

Branimir Glavas, accused of the wartime abduction, torture and the murder of 12 ethnic Serbs in the eastern town of Osijek, was elected as the head of his hardline Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB).

His party won three seats in the assembly which can have up to 160 deputies, according to electoral commission figures released after more than 95 percent of votes counted from Sunday's election.

Glavas, whose trial opened in October in Osijek, is Croatia's most senior politician to face war crimes charges to which he pleaded not guilty.

His party said earlier that if elected in the parliament, Glavas would have to be released from detention since he would have parliamentary immunity.

Glavas, 51, was the defence chief of Osijek at the time of the 1991 incidents of which he is accused.

Croatia's proclamation of independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 sparked the four-year war with rebel Serbs who opposed the move.

Glavas is a former top official of the incumbent Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). After the 2003 legislative elections he entered the parliament as an HDZ deputy but later split to form his own party.

The conservative HDZ emerged from the elections with a lead over the opposition leftist Social Democrats (SDP), although the latter has refused to concede defeat and both have started talks to find coalition partners.

Under Croatia's electoral law, the president must give the mandate to form a government to the party that shows it has a parliamentary majority.

A total of 4.4 million people were entitled to cast ballots, of whom some 400,000 Croatians living abroad, mostly in neighbouring Bosnia.