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 ...
who was later convicted of
war crimes.
Early life and the Croatian War of Independence
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)