ZAGREB, CROATIA - - We expected this to have happened sooner or later. This best proves the very good cooperation between the Croatian and Serbian interior ministries – Croatian Police Director’s Office head Krunoslav Borovec told us, commenting last night’s apprehension of Zeljko Milovanovic, suspected to be one of the assassins of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic. 

According to some Serbian media, police there received information about Milovanovi’c arrival in Belgrade on Friday night and as soon as they received the information, the entire police force was activated and his arrest started being planned.

Was it possible for me to have walked and driven freely in Zagreb, although the Croatian police have been looking for me so much? How could I have even crossed the border when Croatia has issued APBs on me? I wonder why the police did not want to check if I was in Zagreb during Pukanic and Pranjic`s murders. It can be easily checked that I was in Doboj.

Milovanovic's letter to Serbia's Press

According to Serbia’s Blic, Milovanovic was located and arrested by Belgrade investigators together with special police forces at around 7pm in an elite suburb of Belgrade.

Milovanovic’s detention set to 48 hours 

The fugitive sought by almost all countries in the region was armed at the time of arrest. He had in his possession a loaded Glock gun, but he did not resist arrest. After his arrest which he took with a smile, according to photographs photographers managed to take, his flat into which he had just moved was searched. In it, police found two scorpion submachine guns, four guns, four silencers, a large amount of ammunition, walkie-talkies and several mobile phones and mobile phone cards.

Milovanovic was set 48-hour detention and he will most probably be brought before an investigative judge of the Special Court for Organised Crime on Tuesday. The same court has already launched an investigation against two other suspects, Sreten Jocic, known as Joca Amsterdam, and Milenko Kuzmanovic, who was again arrested in Serbia on Friday after spending 55 days in Zagreb’s Remetinec prison because the court released him due to a lack of evidence.

Milenko Kuzmanovic is a repentant witness? 

Jocic and Kuzmanovic were from the beginning of the case focuses of Croatian investigators investigating the Pukanic murder, but before a key moment that gave a boost to the entire case – the testimony of a protected repentant witness who revealed new, incriminating evidence about how the assassination was organised – the two of them were “untouchable”.

What is interesting is that Zeljko Milovanovic was arrested only several days after Kuzmanovic’s arrest. Unofficial sources in the Serbian police pointed to Kuzmanovic’s good cooperation with investigators. Therefore, there is suspicion that Kuzmanovic has become a repentant witness and that Milovanovic was arrested last night in Belgrade based on information he told police. But for now, these are only speculations.

The only piece missing in the Pukanic case mosaic, at least as regards the organisational and operative part, is the arrest of the last suspect, Bojan Guduric.

Pukanic Assassin Milovanovic Arrested In Belgrade