Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday and pleaded for Croatian seaman Marko Bekavac, who is in Turkish prison, saying that Croatia expects the Turkish authorities to "act fairly in his case ".

Plenkovic said in a post on the X platform that he informed the Turkish minister, who was participating in the Dubrovnik Forum conference, about the status of Croatian captain Marko Bekavac, who is being held in pre-trial detention in Turkey.

“We expect the Turkish authorities to act fairly in his case, taking into account all the circumstances, and to guarantee legal security to Marko Bekavac. The Croatian government will continue to provide diplomatic, consular, legal and any other assistance to the Croatian citizen,” the Croatian PM said.

Croatian seaman Marko Bekavac has been held in Turkish pre-trial detention since October last year, when the police found 137 kilograms of cocaine on a Turkish company’s ship sailing under the Panamanian flag. As the captain of the ship, the Turkish authorities hold Bekavac responsible for drug smuggling.

Bekavac rejects the accusations, claiming that he himself had asked for increased monitoring of the ship’s loading operation in Colombia.

The initial hearing of the 61-year-old captain from Split and ten other seamen was held on 10 June, and the second one is scheduled for mid-July.