Police press charges against 5 suspects for Uzdolje incident

NEWS 28.08.201918:35
Dusko Jaramaz/PIXSELL

The criminal reports were filed by the police against five men on suspicion that they committed a violent hate crime attack in the 21 August incident in the Uzdolje cafe near Knin, and four of those suspects have been arrested while the remaining assailant is on the run.

The four arrested men were interrogated by the prosecutorial authorities on Wednesday, the spokesman for the Sibenik County Office of the State Prosecutor, Emilio Kalabric said later in the day.

They are charged with attacking guests in the Uzdolje cafe while they were watching a TV broadcast of the football match of the Belgrade-based Crvena Zvezda and a Swiss club. In the incident, some of the cafe guests suffered injuries and the interior of the bar was damaged, the spokesman explained.

He also made it clear that not one of the four suspects had been involved in an assault against seasonal workers on the island of Brac in June.

He explained that all of the attackers are young men, however, not one of them is a minor.

Sibenik-Knin county police chief, Ivica Kostanc, said at a news conference today, that all the suspects are members of the Split-based football club’s fan group.

The police are searching for a dozen unidentified men who are believed to have also been engaged in the incident. Those attackers left in personal cars from Split to travel to Uzdolje on 21 August after they had agreed that they would go to the cafe where the Crvena Zvezda match was being televised in order to attack the cafe’s patrons, according to the police official’s explanation.

The offenders may be charged with prison sentences ranging from six month to five years.

Kostanic said that the Uzdolje incident had nothing to do with the incident in a cafe in the village of Djevrske which occurred that same evening.