Tomislav Merčep (28 September 1952 – 16 November 2020) was a Croatian politician and paramilitary leader during the
Croatian War of Independence
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugosl ...
A native of Vukovar, Merčep worked as an engineer before joining the
Croatian Democratic Union
The Croatian Democratic Union ( hr, Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, lit=Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ) is the major conservative, centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croa ...
(HDZ) in 1990. He then entered the local city government as the Secretary of People's Defense ( hr, Sekretar narodne obrane), where he exerted considerable power in the local police and business, esp. in preparation for the impending war.
During the war, he engaged in paramilitary activities which were subsequently investigated by the Hague tribunal and covered by the (now defunct) Croatian newspaper '' Feral Tribune''.
At the turn of 1991, several properties owned by ethnic Serbs were blown up in Vukovar, and it was widely speculated that Merčep was behind this. In 1997 '' Feral Tribune'' released a document which confirmed exchanges of large quantities of explosive materials in September 1990 between Merčep and Branimir Glavaš. In August 1991, Merčep was briefly arrested by Croatian authorities and detained on undisclosed charges, but was soon released and moved to Zagreb together with his family, a week before the
Battle of Vukovar
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Bar ...
started.
Merčep later became an officer in the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs and he participated in the other fronts of the
Croatian War of Independence
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugosl ...
, being in command of thousands of paramilitaries which were responsible for killing and expelling thousands of ethnic Serbs from areas in and around Gospić, among other places (notably the
Murder of the Zec family The murder of the Zec family occurred in Zagreb, Croatia on 7 December 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence, when a squad of five Croatian militiamen shot dead three members of a Serb family: Mihajlo Zec, his wife Marija, and their 12-year ...
in Zagreb). The "Merčepovci" unit detained, tortured and killed several dozen Serb civilians at the Zagreb Trade Fair, Kutina in central Croatia and Pakračka Poljana in western Slavonia in late 1991. A total of 46 civilians were killed by the Merčepovci, three went missing and have not been found, and six were tortured but survived. A decade later, five members of his unit, Munib Suljić, Igor Mikola, Siniša Rimac, Miro Bajramović and Branko Šarić, were indicted on several criminal charges related to the Pakračka Poljana case, involving the killing of prisoners, mostly ethnic Serbs, in a field near Pakrac, and later convicted. Tomislav Merčep himself was not indicted in these proceedings.
Political career
Merčep became a HDZ member of the Chamber of Counties of Croatian Parliament in 1993.
In 1995, he became the leader of the "Association of Croatian Volunteer Veterans of the Patriotic War" ( hr, Udruga hrvatskih dragovoljaca Domovinskog rata, UHDDR). he remained at the head of that association.
In late 1990s he quit the HDZ and instead founded his own party, the
Croatian Popular Party
Croatian Popular Party ( hr, Hrvatska pučka stranka, HPS) is a right-wing political party in Croatia.
The party was founded in 1997 by Tomislav Merčep2000 presidential elections, where he received 0.85% of the vote and was eliminated in the first round.
War crimes prosecution
In 2003, the Croatian weekly ''
Nacional
Nacional, the Portuguese and Spanish word for "national", may refer to:
Airlines
* Nacional Transportes Aéreos, a Brazilian airline defunct in 2002
* Transportes Aéreos Nacional, a Brazilian airline defunct in 1961
Bank
* Banco Nacional, a ...
'' reported that the ICTY was "completing an indictment against Tomislav Merčep", after interviewing Franjo Gregurić, Mladen Markač, Hrvoje Šarinić and others. There were media reports in 2006 that an indictment against Merčep himself, based on ICTY investigations, was forthcoming in the Croatian legal system. In December 2010,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
recommended that Merčep should be prosecuted based on a series of public testimonies about crimes committed by his subordinates. The same week, the County Prosecutor in Zagreb brought up charges against Merčep and he was arrested.
In May 2016, Merčep was sentenced to five-and-a-half years' imprisonment for failing to prevent the murder of 43 Serb civilians in Pakračka Poljana and other locations, committed by members of the unit under his command. In February 2017, upon appeal by the State Attorney's Office, the
Supreme Court of Croatia
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, imagesize = 220px
, caption = Palace of the Supreme Court is located at the Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square
, established =
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, location = Zagreb
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increased his prison term to 7 years.
Death
Merčep was conditionally released from prison in March 2020 due to a serious illness, and died on 16 November 2020.