The Municipal State Attorney's Office in Rijeka has filed an indictment against a 25-year-old for domestic violence and bodily harm, proposing a single prison sentence of one year and three months.
In July 2026, the municipal state attorney's office in Rijeka officially charged a 25-year-old Croatian citizen with suspicion of regularly subjecting his partner to physical and verbal abuse over several months of cohabitation. The indictment charges him with two criminal offenses: domestic violence and causing bodily harm to a close person, and the prosecution has requested the court to impose a single sentence of one year and three months in prison.
According to the indictment, the violence lasted for months in apartments in the Rijeka area. The prosecution alleges that the accused frequently insulted and belittled his partner, physically attacked her, struck her body, grabbed her by the neck, choked her, and pulled her hair with such force that, as stated in the indictment, her hair came out in large clumps.
However, the charges are not limited to physical attacks. The man is also accused of threatening to harm her dog, father, and friends, and of restricting her freedom of movement and preventing her from leaving the apartment after arguments. The indictment mentions that he sometimes directly told her she could not leave the house, even when she wanted to go out to buy cigarettes.
According to the prosecution, the 25-year-old checked his partner's phone and monitored who she was in contact with. When someone called her, he would allegedly express dissatisfaction, start arguments and conflicts, and in one instance, he destroyed her phone.
The prosecution believes that such behavior placed her in a humiliating position, causing her feelings of fear, distress, and personal insecurity. These allegations form the basis of the first part of the indictment, which pertains to the criminal offense of domestic violence.
The second count of the indictment relates to a specific physical attack. The prosecution states that in the early morning hours, after verbally attacking his partner, he struck her in the nose with his hand.
The woman suffered a fracture of the tip of the nasal bones without displacement, which the court expert assessed as a minor bodily injury. Since she was his partner, i.e., a close person, the prosecution charges him with the more severe form of the criminal offense of bodily harm.
The defendant was examined during the proceedings and denied committing the criminal offenses he is charged with.
On the other hand, the prosecution believes there is reasonable suspicion based on several pieces of evidence. These include the partner's testimony given at a hearing before the investigating judge, photographs of her injuries, medical documentation, and the findings and opinion of a court expert. The case file also contains recordings of the interrogations of the accused and the victim.
As explained in the indictment, the partner described to the investigating judge the behavior by which the accused, in her words, placed her in a humiliating position and caused her bodily injuries. In the opinion of the State Attorney's Office, her testimony, along with the already obtained documentation, provides sufficient grounds for filing the indictment.
For the criminal offense of domestic violence, the prosecution proposes that the court first impose a sentence of one year in prison, and it seeks another year for the bodily harm to his partner.
After that, the prosecution proposes that the sentences be combined and that the 25-year-old be given a single prison sentence of one year and three months. Additionally, it requests that the accused pay 250 euros for the lump-sum costs of the criminal proceedings and 200.03 euros for the costs of the forensic medical examination.
The prosecution maintains that the proposed prison sentence is in line with the severity of the offense and the circumstances stated in the indictment. Precautionary measures have already been imposed on the 25-year-old, and the prosecution has requested the court to extend them, as it believes the conditions for their existence are still met.
It should be noted that the charges have not yet been proven in court, and the 25-year-old is presumed innocent until his guilt is proven by a final judgment.
