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Branimir Glavaš


Branimir Glavaš (born 23 September 1956) is a Croatian former major general and right-wing politician. He was one of the founders of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party which was in power in the 1990s and one of its key figures until a split in 2006. In 2009 he was found guilty for war crimes.

Glavaš came to prominence in his home city of Osijek in eastern Croatia during the 1991–95 war of independence when he led its defense and attained the rank of major general in the Croatian Army. After the war he continued to exercise much influence as one of the leading members of Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

In 2005, Glavaš was charged with war crimes at a Croatian court; he left HDZ and founded a new party – the Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB). After a lengthy and controversial trial, during which he was re-elected to parliament and had to be stripped of immunity twice, in 2009 he was found guilty of torture and murder of Serb civilians in Osijek during the war, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Zagreb County Court. He then fled to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina where he was arrested. In September 2010, his conviction was upheld by a Bosnian court, though the sentence had been reduced to 8 years in prison. On 20 January 2015, after serving five years in prison, he was released from prison, after Croatia's Constitutional Court rescinded his war crimes conviction on procedural grounds. His case was sent back to the Supreme Court for retrial. In July 2016, the Supreme Court quashed his verdict and ordered a retrial.

Glavaš' father Ljubomir and his mother Zorka (née Pandžić), were born in Drinovci, Grude (present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina) and moved to Osijek in 1949. He attended gymnasium in his home town of Osijek and graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Osijek. In 1990 Glavaš was one of the founders of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and one of the most prominent members of that party in Slavonia. In the same year he was elected to the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) and later became part of the last Croatian delegation in the House of Republics and Provinces of the Yugoslav Federal Assembly.


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