Makarska: Serbian (49) jailed 14 days over Mladic posts

A 49-year-old Serbian citizen, who was pushed into the sea in Makarska several days ago for refusing to take off his Red Star Belgrade shirt, has now landed behind bars himself. Croatia’s General Misdemeanor Court has ordered that he be held for 14 days, while the man who pushed him into the water has since been released. The case, which Serbian media have followed since news of the attack first broke, has taken a turn that directly affects a citizen of our country and raises the question of how Croatian authorities are handling a situation in which a Serbian tourist is both the victim of an attack and, as it now turns out, the subject of his own investigation.

The incident happened two days ago in Makarska, on Croatia’s Adriatic coast, when a 43-year-old man pushed the Serbian tourist into the sea because he was wearing a shirt bearing Red Star Belgrade’s colors. News of the attack was first reported by N1 Zagreb, after which Croatian police checked the injured man’s social media profile. They found that in one post he had glorified war criminal Ratko Mladic, and in another he had insulted the Republic of Croatia and its citizens.

According to the General Misdemeanor Court, police requested on Saturday that the 49-year-old be held over disturbing public peace and order, and the court ordered his detention for 14 days. In a statement carried by N1 Zagreb, Croatian police said that “detention for 14 days has been ordered due to disturbing public peace and order,” after which he was taken to Split’s Bilice prison.

The 43-year-old man who pushed the tourist into the sea was also reported for disturbing public peace and order, but was released after questioning. That partly reverses the roles in the case: the man who physically attacked the Serbian tourist is currently free, while the man who was attacked is now in custody over posts from his own social media profile.

Croatia’s General Misdemeanor Court, unlike a criminal court, handles cases of disturbing public peace and order and similar offenses, so a 14 day detention in this kind of proceeding is formally not the same measure as pretrial detention in a criminal investigation. In practice, however, it means the 49-year-old will spend the next two weeks behind bars at Bilice prison near Split, the same facility that has previously held others detained under rulings from Croatian misdemeanor courts.

Srpske Novine previously reported on the attack itself, in a piece headlined “Makarska: man arrested over attack on Red Star fan,” when Croatian police announced that the case would be prosecuted. This latest development, in which the Serbian citizen who was attacked ended up in custody himself, had not been known until now.

The case comes as relations between Belgrade and Zagreb, still burdened by questions of symbols and memories from the wars of the 1990s, remain a sensitive topic in the region. Wearing Red Star Belgrade insignia on the Croatian coast has sparked incidents before, and this case shows that consequences can also fall on those who were originally the victims of a physical attack.

Whether the 49-year-old will appeal the General Misdemeanor Court’s ruling is not yet known. It is also unclear whether Serbian authorities, such as the consulate in Split, will respond to the case of a citizen held in custody in a neighboring country. Croatian police have not yet released further details on the investigation into the 43-year-old who pushed the tourist into the sea.