The Croatian prime minister has pledged to relentlessly pursue the killers of a journalist slain in a bombing, promising that no criminal would sleep calmly until this case and other major crimes were solved.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader convened an emergency session of the national security council on Friday to discuss the death of Ivo Pukanic, 47, who owned and edited Nacional, an influential publication known for its investigative journalism.
Nacional’s marketing director, Niko Franjic, also died when an explosive device was placed near their car in the capital, Zagreb.
PHOTO: AFP
“We will fight organized crime or terrorism — whatever is behind this murder — to its very end,” Sanader said after the security council’s meeting. “From now on, no criminal can sleep calmly.”
Sanader also said there was no need to introduce the national state of emergency as some have suggested, but that all relevant institutions would be mobilized.
Croatian TV channels showed Pukanic’s gutted Lexus and two bodies draped with cloth beside the car. The blast also slightly injured two others and shattered windows of neighboring buildings.
Pukanic’s killing came just two weeks after the 26-year-old daughter of a prominent lawyer was shot twice in the head in the capital, in what authorities described as a mafia-style slaying. No suspects have been arrested.
The bold killings, coupled with several recent beatings in Zagreb, triggered national outrage and accusations that the government was powerless against crime.
The EU has warned Croatia to crack down on crime and corruption if it hopes to join the 27-nation bloc. In Brussels, Belgium, Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement official, condemned the killing and said he believed Croatian officials would “duly investigate” and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Krunoslav Borovec, a senior police official, said authorities had questioned 150 people and were exploring all motives, ranging “from banal ones to those with organized crime background.”
He said the attack was “undoubtedly carried out by professionals” and added that country’s best policemen were investigating the case.
Borovec said police experts were preparing a sketch from witness accounts of the man suspected of planting an explosive device near Pukanic’s car. They were also examining security camera footage.
Pukanic had claimed six months ago that someone had tried to shoot him dead, but missed. Police gave him protection briefly afterward, but he asked in August to have it discontinued, Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko said on Thursday.
Nacional, however, claimed that Pukanic faced “police pressure” to accept the withdrawal of his 24-hour protection.
“Because he had police protection taken away, despite the dangers that still threatened him, those who made that decision were directly responsible for his death,” the paper said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Pukanic’s Nacional, launched in 1995, had been praised by some for disclosing murky political or business deals.
But he also was often criticized for being too close to certain politicians, secret agents and even a man believed to be a criminal gang’s boss — and was therefore not widely trusted as an impartial journalist.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home