Croatia charges ex-minister, 93, over WWII crimes

Croatia's first post-independence interior minister was charged today over the killing of civilians at the end of World War II, in the first indictment of its kind in the country.
Josip Boljkovac, 93, is suspected of ordering detention and killing of 21 civilians as a senior member of the partisan communist secret service OZNA, a statement from prosecutors said.
The civilians, from the Duga Resa region southwest of Zagreb, were accused of collaborating with the country's Nazi-allied Ustasha regime.
They were arrested and killed in May and June 1945, the prosecutors said.
In 2011, Boljkovac was detained for a month as part of a probe into the crimes. At the time he denied the allegations.

Boljkovac was Croatia's first interior minister after independence and a member of the main opposition HDZ party.
His indictment is the first of its kind in the former Yugoslav republic, which has been independent since 1991.