Mar 17 2007
Serbian mafia boss arrested
FRANKFURT — A Serbian businessman with ties to the criminal underworld has been arrested in Frankfurt, after spending four years on the run.
Italy’s Ansa news agency reported Thursday Andrija Drašković, considered an heir to Željko Ražnatović a.k.a. Arkan by the Italian judiciary, was arrested on an oustanding international warrant issued by the Bari anti-mafia department.
Drašković arrived in Germany on a plane from Belgrade prior to being taken into custody by the German police.
The agency added the Italian authorities considered the 43-year-old “one of the most important mafia bosses in the former Yugoslavia.”
The Italian media link Drašković with drugs and cigarette smuggling. After Arkan’s January 2000 murder, Drašković was mentioned as one of the organizers of the hit.
During the subsequent time he spent in jail, Drašković testified in the Arkan murder trial. He told a court he was “close to Rade Marković”, at that time MUP’s state security (DB) chief, and claimed he was in possession of a DB badge, allegedly given to him “during the 1999 NATO bombing.”
Drašković, along with his close associate Aleksandar Golubović stood trial for the September 11, 2000, murder of Zvonko Plećić in a Belgrade restaurant.
He was initially handed a nine and a half years sentence, increased to 12 years after the prosecution appealed the decision.
However, a federal court annulled the verdict and ordered a retrial, during which both Drašković and Golubović were acquitted.
The court found that the pair shot and killed Plećić “in self defense”, although the victim was shot in the back.
After less than four years in prison, Drašković was released. He was on several occasions targeted in botched assassination attempts.
Serbian mafia boss arrested 16 March 2007 - http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=40157
