Firefighter commander Drazen Slavica was cleared of all charges over the 2007 Kornat disaster which killed 12 firefighters, in a verdict which ended his re-trial at the Zadar county court on Friday.

In August 2007 during the summer fires season, 13 firemen who were sent in by helicopter to fight a fire on the island of Kornat found themselves surrounded by fire within minutes, with six dying on the spot and another six in hospitals due to serious burns, with only one firefighter surviving what was the worst peacetime loss of life in Croatia.

In the wake of the disaster, Slavica was indicted on charges of crimes against public safety, with persecution accusing him for errors of judgement which included dispatching two underage volunteers to a hazardous area and ordering the airlifting of local firefighters who had not been trained for air landing operations.

Slavica had previously been acquitted in a widely publicised trial which lasted from 2010 to 2013, before Supreme Court ordered a re-trial in 2016 on account of procedural errors.

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