The Serbian war crimes prosecution has dropped criminal charges against Croatian veteran Tihomir Purda due to lack of evidence, deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said on March 3.

Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor voiced satisfaction that the Purda case had been closed, pointing out that it was very difficult for Croatia.

Vekaric told BETA that the prosecution had also dropped its cases against Petar Janjic and Danko Maslov, under investigation for the same war crime -- against wounded and ill patients in Vukovar, in 1991.

Vekaric further stated that 44 witnesses had been interviewed in Serbia and Croatia as part of the proceedings, but not all of them incriminated Purda, Janjic and Maslov. The prosecution thus abandoned the charges.

Later in the day on March 3, Purda was released from extradition detention at the Zenica prison, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was held since his Jan. 5 arrest at a border crossing. A Croatian government plane is to take him from Bosnia to Croatia.