ZAGREB (Croatia), December 31 (SeeNews) – Croatian Interior Minister Ivica Kirin handed in his resignation over the weekend after going hunting earlier this month with a war crimes suspect, general Mladen Makrac, the Interior Ministry said.
"I consider it my moral [...] duty [to resign] because of the circumstances in which I found myself in the general Mladen Makrac case," Kirin said in a statement published on the ministry’s website.
Croatian media carried last week pictures of Kirin accompanied by several other men including Makrac hunting wild boar in Bilogora, eastern Croatia, earlier in December.
Markac is indicted by United Nation’s International Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on charges of persecution, deportation, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, murder and inhumane acts. Markac was the commander of the special police of the Croatia Interior Ministry during the 1991-1995 war.
Following the media reports about the hunting trip, the Hague requested from the Croatian government to arrest and transfer Markac to a detention unit in the Netherlands by Sunday as he had violated the conditions of his provisional release by leaving his designated residence without due permission. Markac had been granted provisional release in December 2004. The Croatian government complied with the request.