Pukanic`s Assassin Planned To Kill Pope, Dodik

Zeljko Milovanovic was planning to assassinate the Pope during his latest visit to Banja Luka, as well as RS Premier Milorad Dodik.

Hired hit man Zeljko Milovanovic, known as Gavra and Crveni Vjetar (meaning Red Wind), who participated in the assassination of Nacional weekly co-founder Ivo Pukanic and the paper`s marketing director Niko Franjic on October 23, was previously preparing other assassinations, Sarajevo-based Slobodna Bosna weekly writes.

The paper points out that the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska police believe Milovanovic was behind a failed assassination plots on Pope John Paul II and RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.

The assassination on the Pope, during his visit to Banja Luka five years ago, was supposed to have been carried out with the same explosive device which killer Pukanic and Franjic. The same explosive was also supposed to have been used to kill Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov. Republika Srpska Interior Ministry chief of crime police Gojko Vasic confirmed this for Slobodna Bosna.

Well protected

The RS police had reports of the planned assassination two months before the Pope`s arrival, and in international operation surveillanced 200 suspects from RS, many of whom were members of the Chetnik movement. The Pope assassination failed, but Milan Vukelic was killed with the same explosive device in November last year, as well as Vlatko Macar in January at Pale.

The RS police do not wish to officially link the two murders with Milovanovic, but point out that just several people know how to assemble such explosive devices. They also learned during the investigation that Milovanovic was planning to fire the M80 rocket launcher known as the “Wasp” into the car of RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik in 2006.

Slobodna Bosna concludes that Milovanovic had good police and political protection in Doboj, because until recently, when the police started a search for him over Pukanic, he was quietly living in the city for two years with his family.