On 10 December 2025, the Higher Court in Belgrade – War Crimes Department delivered a verdict finding Krunoslav Fehir guilty of belonging to the group Branimir’s Osijek Battalion (BOB), which abducted, tortured, and killed Serbian civilians in Osijek in 1991. He was sentenced to six months in prison, the same amount of time he had already spent in detention.
In a brief explanation of the verdict, the presiding judge, Vladimir Duruz, emphasized that the court did not accept Fehir’s defense that he was not part of the group that committed the crimes because he learned what was happening only after 10 to 15 days; in the court’s assessment, he had the power of observation, awareness, and the ability to express a position. The court also rejected his claim that he was responsible only for guarding facilities and distributing food, because if that were true, it questioned how he knew what was taking place, and it was noted that he was armed with both long and short firearms. The court further rejected his defense that his father had forcibly brought him into Branimir’s Osijek Battalion and that he could not oppose him or leave Osijek, because, in the court’s view, he did not demonstrate how his father coerced him, and he was aware of the events.
The six-month sentence was explained by mitigating circumstances: at the time of the events, Fehir was a 16-year-old youth and a key witness in the non-finalized criminal proceedings in Croatia that led to the uncovering of the 1991 war crimes in Osijek.
Although the trial was conducted efficiently and without delay, Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) and Documenta believe that the court’s reasoning is harsh and lacking an understanding of the context of 1991, when Krunoslav was 16, a second-year high-school student, with a father who was a close associate of the notorious Branimir Glavaš, under whose orders Serbs disappeared and were killed. The judgment does not take into account that, in the social climate of Osijek – with the narrative that Croatia was fighting for its sovereignty and that all Serbs were suspicious – almost any 16-year-old boy could be drawn into extremist groups and easily convinced that shooting a Serb was not a crime. Particularly disturbing is the fact that the panel of judges showed insufficient sensitivity to the courage Fehir demonstrated in 2005 when he began publicly speaking about the 1991 war crimes in Osijek – something that was by no means easy.
According to HLC and Documenta, the trial of Krunoslav Fehir was unnecessary. It was organized under political pressure for Serbia’s judiciary to turn toward justice for Serbian victims. Compliant institutions indicted and tried Fehir for crimes committed by his father, Branimir Glavaš, and other BOB members, as if the present-day Fehir were still a member of that group and had knowingly participated in killing Serbian civilians.
HLC and Documenta believe that by broadly interpreting “membership in a group,” the court has created a possibility for prosecuting any member of such a group, including minors, whom the court, regardless of the evidence, considers aware and capable of defying the authority of a father or superior officer. The sentence below the statutory minimum, and the fact that yesterday his mother, Ankica, took her son home saying, “I’m taking him home, tomorrow I can sleep peacefully”, does not change the fundamental problem with this verdict – it is not just, because it punished a boy for the crime of a father against his son.
