ZAGREB, Feb 3: The Croatian trial of a former Macedonian interior minister over the murder of seven South Asian immigrants, six of them Pakistanis, was postponed on Tuesday after he failed to appear in court, HINA news agency reported.

Ljube Boskoski, 48, did not show up at the court in the northwestern town of Pula, where he faces charges of ordering the murders of the immigrants in 2002 in his country, the state-run agency quoted the presiding judge as saying.

Boskoski’s lawyer said his client, who holds both Croatian and Macedonian passports, was never served with a summons.

The justice ministry in Zagreb said they would review the whole case.

The seven immigrants — six Pakistanis and an Indian — were killed in March, 2002, by Macedonian special forces and accused of having planned attacks against Western embassies in Skopje at a time when Boskoski was interior minister.

Boskoski allegedly ordered the murders of the immigrants in a bid to paint them as terrorists and win favour from Washington.

The former minister was arrested in Croatia in 2004 and Skopje has decided to hand the case over to Zagreb.

In 2005, he was extradited to The Hague to face trial before the UN war crimes tribunal. He returned to Macedonia after being acquitted of the charges last year.—AFP