Belgrade: A fugitive convicted of taking part
in the assassination of Serbia`s Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic
seven years ago and several other murders has been extradited
from Croatia, Serbia`s police said on Wednesday.
Sretko Kalinic was flown on a Serbian government plane
from Zagreb to Belgrade early today amid tight security
measures that included blocked traffic by heavily armed SWAT
teams.
His extradition was made possible after Serbia and
Croatia, wartime foes in the 1990s, recently signed an
extradition treaty. Kalinic, 26, has a dual Serbian-Croatian
citizenship.
Croatian police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec said Kalinic
is the first Croatian citizen to be extradited to Serbia. The
new extradition agreement is intended to stop numerous Balkan
crime figures from evading justice by finding shelter in the
neighbouring countries.
Kalinic was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison
with 10 other former gang members and paramilitaries for a
planning role in the March 2003 assassination of Djindjic,
Serbia`s first democratically-elected prime minister who was
killed by a sniper bullet in downtown Belgrade.
PTI
