Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader on Wednesday accepted the resignation Interior Minister Ivica Kirin tendered amidst a scandal involving his participation in a Christmas hunt with a suspected war criminal on parole.
State Secretary Ivica Buconjic will carry out ministerial duties until the appointment of a new interior minister, the Croatian national news agency HINA reported, citing a government statement.
Kirin submitted an irrevocable resignation to Sanader on Dec. 29.
In the letter of resignation, Kirin said he considered his resignation as a moral act and an obligation considering the circumstances in which he had found himself in the case of retired General Mladen Markac.
Markac, an indictee of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, violated the terms of his provisional release by taking part in the Bilogora hunt, outside his place of residence, on Dec.22. Kirin was one of the participants in the hunt.
Following the publication of photos showing Markac and Kirin in the hunt, The Hague tribunal ordered the general's transfer from Zagreb to the detention center in The Hague.
Markac, 52, headed the Croatian special police and has been charged with war crimes against Serb civilians by the U.N. war crime tribunal. He had been on provisional release in Croatia since December 2004 to wait for his trial.
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