Eight Croatian and two Serbian nationals have been detained on suspicion of being involved in the mafia-style murder of a high-profile Croatian journalist, police said on Thursday.
“Four people were detained on Wednesday in [the eastern] Vukovar-Srijem County while the others were arrested in Zagreb,” police official Krunoslav Borovec told journalists.
Ivo Pukanic, founder and editor-in-chief of the political weekly Nacional, and his marketing director were killed in a blast in downtown Zagreb last week.
The suspects were arrested in raids by special police because they were “extremely dangerous members of criminal circles,” Borovec said.
Police had to use force during the some of the arrests, leaving two suspects and two officers with minor injuries, he said, adding security forces were to search around a dozen apartments, houses and cars on Thursday.
“We expect that during these and other police operations we will find new evidence which will back a reasonable doubt that these are the perpetrators of the murder of Pukanic and [Niko] Franjic,” Borovec said.
Meanwhile, a lawyer identified three of the suspects as cousins Luka and Robert Matanic, and Amir Mafalani.
“Police informed me that the Matanics and Mafalani were arrested on suspicion of being responsible for the murder of Ivo Pukanic and that they want me to defend them,” lawyer Zoran Pilipovic told the state news agency HINA.
Robert Matanic, 31, returned to Croatia in May after spending more than eight months in prison in Bulgaria over a series of mafia murders there. He was released due to a lack of evidence, local media reported.
The daily Jutarnji List said the two Serbian nationals were detained near the border with Serbia while trying to prepare the escape of their Croatian accomplices. The two are close to one of Serbia’s most notorious mafia bosses, Sreten “Amsterdam” Jocic, the paper said.
Borovec declined to elaborate on the suspects’ identity, stressing police were cooperating with their counterparts from Bosnia and Serbia.
In Belgrade, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said his police force had “significantly contributed to solving the Pukanic murder.”
The arrests came after Croatia’s new justice and interior ministers on Wednesday pledged to crack down on organized crime following a spate of mafia-style murders.
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