CROATIA/BOSNIA: WARLORD ARKAN - PROFILE

(15 Jan 2000) English/Nat

The Serbian paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as Arkan, has been shot dead in a gun battle at Belgrade's Inter-Continental Hotel.

It's believed he was shot in the eye during an exchange of fire that left another man dead.

Police have now blocked the entrance to the hotel.

Arkan - who's real name is Zeljko Raznatovic - led a Serb paramilitary group during the Bosnian and Croatian wars.

His private army, the Serb Volunteer Guard, also called "Tigers," was the most notorious paramilitary group operating during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Arkan was indicted for war crimes by the International Court of Justice in the Hague in 1997, but the indictment was kept under wraps until the NATO air campaign in the Balkans began in March.

The tribunal made public his indictment in an apparent attempt to dissuade him from joining the Serb crackdown in Kosovo.

It's alleged that he instigated a series of atrocities between 1992 and 1995.

Arkan is accused of being behind the 1991 massacres in Eastern Slavonia in Croatia, and of orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Moslems in eastern Bosnia.

Some 14-hundred Bosnians were killed in the Bosnian village of Foca.

The killings started in the spring of 1992 allegedly with the arrival of Arkan's and other paramilitary groups.

Before long, all the villages and the suburbs in which mostly Muslims lived were burned to the ground.

During the Balkan conflict, Arkan pictured himself as a war hero, saviour of the national interests.

He has denied involvement in war crimes.

SOUNDBITE (English):
"We -- the special forces of the police and the Serbian voluntary guard -- are now 800 metres away from Kljuc which has been occupied by Moslem forces and we hope to retake our town of Kljuc tomorrow or the day after,"
SUPER CAPTION: Zeljko Raznjatovic "Arkan", Serbian Paramilitary leader

In the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, the Belgrade ice cream parlor owner reputedly became one of Serbia's richest men, allegedly through the currency black market, oil smuggling and arms dealing.

His "Tigers" militia, meanwhile, became known for savagery.

During the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, which ended with the withdrawal of Milosevic's forces from Kosovo and the entry of NATO-led peacekeepers, Arkan frequently warned the Atlantic Alliance against a land invasion, threatening fierce resistance if that happened.

He and his wife Ceca, a popular Serbian folk singer, were frequent nightly visitors to Belgrade's Hyatt Hotel during the bombing, apparently fearing to stay at home and risk becoming a NATO target.

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