Igor Bavčar

Igor Bavčar (born 28 November 1955) is a Slovenian politician and manager. He rose to prominence during the Slovenian spring, when he served as chairman of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, the largest independent civil society movement in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. He was the Slovenian Minister of Interior during the Slovenian war of independence in June 1991, and coordinated Slovenian defence forces together with the Minister of Defence Janez Janša. He remained one of the most influential political figures in Slovenia until 1992, and remained an important member of the political establishment until 2002, when he left politics to engage in the private sector.

Early career Igor Bavčar was born in the town of Postojna in western Slovenia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to a family originating from the Vipava Valley. After finishing the Novo Mesto Grammar School, he went to a police academy. After a few years, he decided to leave the police career, and enrolled in the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Social Sciences), where he studied political science. During his student years, he became the editor of the radical student journal Tribuna that advocated orthodox Marxist and even Maoist tendencies. Six months later he was arrested in financial fraud investigation and released after 10 hours. In September 2016, he was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 5 years of prison along with an 18 million euro penalty.