The Serbian police have established beyond doubt that the man who was arrested around 2 am on Thursday while trying to illegally cross the border from Croatia into Serbia at Morovici, Serbia, is Milos Simovic, a member of the so-called Zemun clan, Croatian Interior Ministry spokesman Krunoslav Borovec said.
He said the Serbian police established Simovic's identity with certainty this morning, after he was arrested last night near the border at Bajakovo without any identification papers, visibly exhausted and dishevelled.
"This was the most probable version we expected, that he will try to flee Croatia. We thought that he would flee to Slovenia or Bosnia-Herzegovina, but he went to Serbia," Borovec said, dismissing speculation that Croatian police let Simovic escape so that he could be arrested in Serbia where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for involvement in the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
Even though Simovic is now beyond the reach of Croatian police, they will press charges against him for an attempt to kill a member of the same mob clan, Sretko Kalinic, in Rakitje outside Zagreb on Tuesday.
Kalinic, too, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the Djindjic murder, and both he and Simovic had been on the run since 2003.
Borovec said that the gravely wounded Kalinic was not under arrest and that his status would be decided by a court that would decide on a request to extradite him to Serbia. Serbian authorities today sent such a request to Interpol's office in Zagreb.
Borovec would not reveal details of the investigation into Kalinic's wounding, nor would he say if the weapon used in the attack on him had been found and what Kalinic had revealed to police.
The media claim that the 36-year-old Kalinic, born in Zadar, Croatia, also known by the nickname Zver (Beast), has not only told the police in Zagreb that he was shot by Simovic, but has also revealed places in Croatia where other members of the Serbian underworld were hiding.
When asked how it was possible that two die-hard criminals had been living normally in Croatia for years, Borovec said that it was only media speculation.
Both men were forced to significantly change their appearance, they obtained several false passports and they took a lease on an apartment in Zagreb's neighbourhood of Laniste under a false identity, Borovec said, adding that it definitely was not a normal life.
He added that the investigation would reveal since when and how long they had been living in Zagreb because there was information that they moved in other countries in the region as well.
The only certain piece of information for the time being is that their escape from Serbia was financed by someone from Serbia, Borovec said.
He would not reveal the false identities the two men used in their passports, saying only that it was a classical case of identity theft.
He also would not say where the passports had been issued. The media speculate that they were issued by the Croatian consulate in Tuzla, northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Sisak-Moslavina County Police Department.
The police have searched the flat used by the two men and found evidence that could link them with some other crimes and persons.
