Two arrested over brutal stadium attack

Two persons were placed in custody late Monday for attacking a plain clothes policeman during a football game Sunday. The incident, the brutality of which has shocked the Serbian public, happened at half time of the MSL match between Red Star and Hajduk Kula in Belgrade. Two arrested over brutal stadium attack The hooligans assaulted Gendarmerie inspector Nebojsa Trajkovic, at one point trying to force a lit flare in his mouth, having previously burned his back and arms. Now a judge has decided to place the two suspects, Milos Zimonjic, 21, of Sombor, and Belgrade resident Slavisa Drakul, 37, who is a Red Star employee, behind bars for a month, pending the results of an investigation that charges them with violent behavior at a sports venue. The third suspect, a minor whose identity has not been revealed, is also under investigation in a separate process, but has not been detained. If convicted on this charge, they could spend between three months and five years in jail. But when Interior Minister Dragan Jocic visited the policeman in hospital yesterday, he said the incident, described in much of the media as an attempt to lynch the officer, was an attempted murder. Jocic lashed out at the judiciary for their slow and inappropriate response to numerous criminal complaints filed against hooligans. "From January 2006 to July 2007, the MUP has filed 392 criminal charges, none of which have been dismissed. But there were only seven investigations, and eight indictments so far," said Jocic, who was at the military clinic, the VMA, along with Police Director Milorad Veljovic and Gendarmerie chief, General Borivoje Tesic, to visit Trajkovic. Trajkovic is recovering from his injuries, which include multiple first and second degree burns and contusions of head and chest. In October, Serbia tried to stem the tide of violence in the sports venues that has in the past several years included fatal stabbings and mass riots with new, more rigorous legislation, which still falls short of the British model that dealt with the phenomenon successfully in the 1990s. But leaders of organized groups of supporters have voiced strong opposition to the new laws. Some analysts now see the unprecedented brutality of the attack against the officer Sunday as an expression of anger from the hooligans, over attempts to deal with the violence they cause, which has until now often gone unpunished. An armed gendarme protects injured Trajkovic, right (Beta)

Two arrested over brutal stadium attack

The hooligans assaulted Gendarmerie inspector Nebojša Trajković, at one point trying to force a lit flare in his mouth, having previously burned his back and arms.

Now a judge has decided to place the two suspects, Miloš Zimonjić, 21, of Sombor, and Belgrade resident Slaviša Drakul, 37, who is a Red Star employee, behind bars for a month, pending the results of an investigation that charges them with violent behavior at a sports venue. The third suspect, a minor whose identity has not been revealed, is also under investigation in a separate process, but has not been detained.

If convicted on this charge, they could spend between three months and five years in jail.

But when Interior Minister Dragan Jočić visited the policeman in hospital yesterday, he said the incident, described in much of the media as an attempt to lynch the officer, was an attempted murder.

Jočić lashed out at the judiciary for their slow and inappropriate response to numerous criminal complaints filed against hooligans.

"From January 2006 to July 2007, the MUP has filed 392 criminal charges, none of which have been dismissed. But there were only seven investigations, and eight indictments so far," said Jočić, who was at the military clinic, the VMA, along with Police Director Milorad Veljović and Gendarmerie chief, General Borivoje Tešić, to visit Trajković.

Trajković is recovering from his injuries, which include multiple first and second degree burns and contusions of head and chest.

In October, Serbia tried to stem the tide of violence in the sports venues that has in the past several years included fatal stabbings and mass riots with new, more rigorous legislation, which still falls short of the British model that dealt with the phenomenon successfully in the 1990s.

But leaders of organized groups of supporters have voiced strong opposition to the new laws.

Some analysts now see the unprecedented brutality of the attack against the officer Sunday as an expression of anger from the hooligans, over attempts to deal with the violence they cause, which has until now often gone unpunished.