A former member of the Croatian Parliament, Branimir Glavas, said on Sunday he had filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court and the Administrative Court against the decision by President Ivo Josipovic to strip him of his general's rank.
"That decision clearly violates my human and civil rights and freedoms under the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia," Glavas said in a statement.
Glavas said that Josipovic's decision was "motivated by ideological and political bigotry, blindness and hatred towards everything that reminds him of the glorious times of Franjo Tudjman and creation of the Croatian state" and that it was a political act "directed at the failed attempt at my moral and political discrimination".
He said that by making such a decision Josipovic violated the Croatian Constitution, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Law on Defence, the Law on Service in the Armed Forces, the Rules on the Awarding of Ranks and Promotions, and the Penal Code.
Josipovic stripped Glavas of his rank and state decorations last month after the Supreme Court sentenced him to eight years in prison for war crimes committed against Serb civilians in the eastern city of Osijek in the early 1990s.
Glavas, who also holds Bosnian citizenship, had fled to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly before a trial court found him guilty of war crimes. He was arrested in Drinovci, southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, on September 28 after the Bosnian State Court upheld the Croatian Supreme Court ruling based on a bilateral agreement on the mutual enforcement of court rulings in criminal matters to prevent persons holding both Croatian and Bosnian citizenship from avoiding to serve final prison sentences.
Glavas is currently in custody in Sarajevo.
