Tried to Kill 9 of His Children Due to Poverty

Smail Bjelic put a hand grenade in his mouth and tried to activate it. His wife and nine children were with him in the house.

Bosnian Smail Bjelic tried to kill himself, his wife and nine of their children tow days ago by activating a hand grenade, presumably due to poverty. He was prevented from doing so by police, Sarajevo’s Dnevni avaz daily reported. 

Under the influence of alcohol, at around 6pm on Thursday, Bjelic began threatening to kill his wife, their children and himself.

- He was holding a hand grenade and then he put it in his mouth. We notified the prosecutor who authorised us to negotiate with him to hand over the grenade, but in a way that it does not endanger him, his family or the police – the Bosnian police said.

Police evacuated everybody from near-by buildings and at around 7pm they managed to talk Smail into putting back the safety pin in the grenade.

Smail Bjelic was taken to a police station and will most probably be charged with endangerment of life.