Croatian police arrested a suspect Friday in connection with last year’s high-profile murder of a prominent lawyer’s daughter. The suspect, Mladen Šlogar, 61, has no apparent connections with organized crime.
Authorities had called last year’s shooting of Ivana Hodak in broad daylight a mafia-style murder and vowed to crack down on organized crime. Hours after the killing, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader sacked his ministers of justice and interior, as well as the head of the national police.
Hodak, 26, was shot twice in the head in the staircase of her apartment building on Oct. 6.
Her father, Zvonimir Hodak, is representing a former Croatian general charged with embezzling more than $5 million.
Suspect Nursed Anger: Authorities
Authorities now say Ĺ logar had worked until 1995 at the sports center where Zvonimir Hodak played tennis. Thirteen years later they say, the suspect was still angry at Hodak for not helping him find another job.
“The motive of the murder was revenge against her father, whom the perpetrator believed responsible for his difficult life,” senior police official Krunoslav Borovec told the media.
Police had arrested Ĺ logar for vagrancy in December, for sleeping in a barn. On a routine search of the barn, police found a gun and tests showed it was the gun used to kill Hodak.
The Croatian capital was the scene of four murders last October, prompting the European Union (EU) to warn Croatia that its aspirations to membership were in jeopardy.
Croatia is expected to join the EU after 2010.
Drifter Arrested in Hodak Shooting
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