The trial for the murder of the co-owner of the political weekly Nacional, Ivo Pukanic, resumed on Wednesday after the summer recess with additional questioning of a ballistics expert and the testimony of the man who rented out the apartment in downtown Zagreb which, according to the anti-corruption agency USKOK, the defendants used during the preparation of the assassination.
Witness Ivo Bitunjac said that in the late summer or early fall 2008 he rented the apartment to a person who introduced himself as Franc Kajzer, which was the name on his passport. The monthly apartment rent was EUR 600.
Presiding Judge Ivana Krsul asked the witness if he saw that man in the courtroom today and the witness said it could be the defendant wearing a white shirt, after which the judge ordered that it be stated on the record that the witness identified the fifth defendant Bojan Guduric as the man to whom the apartment was rented.
The witness also identified defendant Amir Mafalani as the person who came with Guduric to check out the apartment that is located on Zagreb's Petrinjska Street, near the County Court and the offices of the Nacional weekly where Pukanic and his associate Niko Franjic were killed in a car bomb explosion.
Ballistics expert Mirko Zebic stuck to his findings in which he mentioned a sniper gun which, according to the indictment, Guduric should have used to kill Pukanic in case the car bomb failed to go off.
The ballistic expert refuted the defence's claims that the sniper gun could not have been used at night.
The trial will resume on 8 September.
