Sretko Kalinic, who is serving a 30-year sentence for involvement in the assassination of Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic, and Zeljko Milovanovic, who is on trial in Belgrade for the assassination of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic and his associate Niko Franjic, were foiled in their attempt to escape from the District Prison in Belgrade on Tuesday morning.
Kalinic and Milovanovic got out of their cells by breaking down the doors. They overpowered a security guard and jumped out of a window into the prison yard where they were caught by police and put back in their cells, the Justice Ministry said in a statement. An investigation is under way.
All the security staff on duty in the block where Kalinic and Milovanovic were held have been suspended and face disciplinary action. The situation in the prison is calm and under control, and security is on the highest alert.
Kalinic, a member of a Serbian infamous gang known as the Zemun Clan, was arrested in Zagreb in mid-2010. Since he had been tried in his absence for the murder of Prime Minister Djindjic in Belgrade in March 2003, he used his right to stand trial again, and in October 2011 he was again sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the assassination.
Milovanovic is on trial in Belgrade for the murder of Pukanic and Franjic in Zagreb in 2008. A Zagreb court found him guilty in his absence of detonating an explosive device that killed Pukanic and Franjic and sentenced him, along five other accused, to 40 years' imprisonment.
Milovanovic and two other accused in the case, Sreten Jocic and Milenko Kuzmanovic, are charged with criminal conspiracy and murder. For a reward of at least 1.5 million euros, they allegedly planted an explosive device that killed Pukanic and Franjic in a car park in central Zagreb in October 2008.
