Željko Ražnatović (Serbian Cyrillic: Жељко Ражнатовић, pronounced [ʒêːʎko raʒnâːtovitɕ]), better known as Arkan (Аркан; 17 April 1952 – 15 January 2000) was a Serbian career criminal and paramilitary leader who was notable for organizing and leading a paramilitary force in the Yugoslav Wars. He was on Interpol's most wanted list in the 1970s and 1980s for robberies and murders committed in a number of countries across Europe and was later indicted by the UN for crimes against humanity for his role during the Yugoslav Wars. Arkan was assassinated in 2000 before his trial.

Early life

Željko Ražnatović was born in Brežice, a small border town in the Styrian region of southern Slovenia, where his father was stationed at the time. He also spent a part of his childhood in Zagreb and Pančevo, before his father's job eventually took the family to Belgrade, which Arkan considered his hometown. His disciplinarian father Veljko Ražnatović was a Montenegrin Serb who served as a decorated officer in the SFR Yugoslav Air Force, earning high rank for his notable World War II involvement on the Partisan side.

Arkan grew up in the 27th March Street, in Belgrade, SR Serbia with three older sisters in a strict, militaristic household with beatings administered by his father being a regular occurrence. In a 1991 interview for Duga magazine, Arkan recalled: "He didn't really hit me in a classical sense, he'd basically grab me and slam me against the floor." Due to the highly demanding and significant position of both his parents, there appeared to be very little time in which a bond was able to be established between parents and children. His parents eventually divorced during his teenage years. In his youth, Arkan aspired to become a pilot.

Criminal career

Arkan ran away from home for the first time at age nine. He later frequently ran away to stay with more tolerant relatives, and simultaneously also got involved in various kinds of crime, eventually ending up in a delinquents' institution.

Arkan was arrested for the first time in 1966 and spent a year at a juvenile detention center not far from Belgrade. His father then sent him to the seaside town of Kotor to join the Yugoslav Navy, but Arkan had other plans, ending up in Paris at the age of 15. In 1969 he was arrested by French police and shipped home, where he was sentenced to three years at the detention center in Valjevo for several burglaries. During this time he organized his own gang in the prison.

In his youth, Arkan was a ward of his father's friend, the Slovenian politician and Federal Minister of the Interior, Stane Dolanc. Dolanc was chief of the secret police and a close associate of the Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito. Whenever Arkan was in trouble Dolanc helped him as a reward for his services to the Yugoslav secret state police (UDBA), as seen in the escape from the Lugano prison in 1981. Stane Dolanc is quoted as having said: "One Arkan is worth more than the whole UDBA."

The European years

In 1972, at the age of 20, hoping to find fortune through a criminal career, he illegally emigrated to Western Europe. Abroad, he got introduced to and kept contact with many well-known criminals from Yugoslavia such as Ljuba Zemunac, Ranko Rubežić, Đorđe "Giška" Božović, Goran Vuković, Rade "Ćenta" Ćaldović etc. all of whom, like him, were also occasionally contracted by the Yugoslav secret service. He took the nickname "Arkan" from one of his forged passports. He had convictions or warrants in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden (20 burglaries, 7 bank robberies, outside assistance to prison escape, attempted murder), Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.

On 28 December 1974 he was arrested in Belgium following a bank robbery and was sentenced to ten years in prison. On 4 July 1979, he managed to escape from the Verviers prison. A Belgian police official was quoted as saying: "He's the most dangerous man I ever came across. He's no ordinary criminal, he's a rabid dog".

Though Arkan was rearrested in the Netherlands on 24 October 1979, the few months he was free were enough for at least two more armed robberies in Sweden and three more in Holland. Serving a 7-year sentence at a prison in Amsterdam, he pulled off another escape on 8 May 1981 after someone slipped him a gun. Wasting no time, more robberies followed, this time in Germany, where after less than a month of freedom he was arrested in Frankfurt on 5 June 1981 following a jewellery store stickup. In the ensuing shootout with police he was lightly wounded, resulting in his placement in the prison hospital ward, where looser security allowed him to escape again only four days later, on 9 June, supposedly by jumping from the window, beating up the first bystander, and stealing his clothing before disappearing. At this point it is believed he was approached by the Yugoslav secret service and was interconnected with many other criminals. His final European arrest occurred in Basel, Switzerland during a routine traffic check on 15 February 1983. However he managed to escape again within months, this time from Torberg prison on 27 April. It is widely speculated that Arkan was closely affiliated with Yugoslav security service UDBA throughout his criminal career abroad. Ražnatović was even on Interpol's ten most wanted list.

Arkan learned the main European languages because of his undercover work in Western Europe. He spoke fluent English, German, French, and Italian, and was also familiar with Swedish, and Dutch. He also spoke some Albanian and Bulgarian.

Back in Yugoslavia

Arkan returned to Yugoslavia in May 1983, continuing his criminal career by opening a number of illegal businesses. In November 1983, two federal policemen ambushed Arkan at his house in order to have him arrested and interrogated over some of his activities. He resisted, pulled a gun, and shot and wounded both of them. An intervention from federal Interior Minister Stane Dolanc effected his release from prison only two days later. This incident increased Arkan's criminal-political reputation in Belgrade as it now became clear to every one of his underworld rivals that he enjoyed protection from the highest circles.

Role in the Yugoslav Wars

Early

Only days after the Croatian elections in 1990, Arkan, who was the leader of the Delije, football fans of the Belgrade club Red Star Belgrade, was at place when Croatian Dinamo Zagreb played home against the Red Star at Stadion Maksimir on May 13, a match that ended in a riot. Arkan and his group, consisting of 1500 people, were involved in a huge fight with the home team football hooligans.

On 11 October 1990, as the political, ethnic, and religious situation in the former Yugoslavia became tense (see Log Revolution), Arkan created a paramilitary group named the Serb Volunteer Guard, possibly under the auspices of the Department of State Security. Arkan was the supreme commander of the unit, which was primarily made up of members of the Delije and his friends. In late October 1990, Arkan traveled to Knin to meet representatives of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a break-away region composed out of ethnic Serbs wanting to remain in FR Yugoslavia (with Montenegro and Serbia), as opposed to the Croatian government that seceded.

On 29 November 1990, Croatian police arrested him at the Croatian-Bosnian border crossing Dvor na Uni, along with local Dušan Carić, and Belgraders Dušan Bandić and Zoran Stevanović. His entourage was sent to Sisak, and was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the newly formed Croatian state. Arkan was given 20 months in jail. He was released from the Remetinec prison in Zagreb on 14 June 1991 under unclear circumstances, without the notice of Josip Boljkovac, then Internal Minister. It is believed that the Croatian and Serbian governments agreed on a 1 million DM settlement.

In July 1991, Arkan was for some time at the Cetinje monastery, with Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović. His group of men, fully armed, were allowed to enter the monastery, which they served as security. Arkan's group travelled from Cetinje to the Siege of Dubrovnik. At the return from Dubrovnik, he was again guest at Cetinje.

War

Arkan's Tigers, a paramilitary force he created, set up their headquarters and training camp in a former military facility in Erdut. His volunteer army saw action from mid 1991 to late 1995, initially in Vukovar region of Croatia. Arkan's much feared irregular military forces consisted of a core of 200 men and perhaps totaled no more than 500 to 1,000. His units were supplied and equipped by the reserves of the Serbian police force during the war in Croatia and Bosnia. Arkan had many soldiers from Western Europe countries like Germany,Russia,Greece and Belgium, all of which are linked with criminal activities in Europe.

After war broke out in the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia in the fall of 1991 and in Bosnia in April 1992, Arkan and his units moved to different territories in these countries. In the Republic of Serbian Krajina, Arkan's Tigers fought in various locales in SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia. In the Republika Srpska, Arkan's Tigers, fought in battles in and around Zvornik, Bijeljina and Brčko mostly with other paramilitary groups on the Croatian and Bosniak side.

In autumn 1995 his troops fought in the area of Banja Luka, Sanski Most and Prijedor. In October 1995 he left Sanski Most, as Armija BiH took the city from the Serbs. Arkan personally led most of war actions, and rewarded his most efficient officers and soldiers with ranks, medals and eventually the products of the looting's. Several younger soldiers were rewarded for their actions in and around the former national park of Tito Kopacki Rit and Bijelo Brdo.

Arkan came to serve as a popular icon for both Serbs and their enemies. For some Serbs he was a folk hero and a patriot, while serving as a target of hatred to their enemies. His troops were also stationed in the Republic of Serbian Krajina to fight against the Croatian paramilitary forces, and he had a dispute over military operations with the Serbian regional leader Milan Martić Arkan also had friendly relations with Russian ultra-nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Power and influence

Arkan was a powerful man with high-level connections in the state apparatus. He had significant influence over public spheres of Serbian society. As part of his public image, Arkan presented himself as a defender of Serbs and fighter for freedom and justice. He clearly fostered two types of images, that of a strong, stern, and often brutal leader in public as well as a caring and reserved family man in private.

 

Party of Serbian Unity political poster

 

Arkan was glorified by part of the Serb population as a war hero, and was the subject of war songs. He owned a luxurious mansion in the elite Belgrade neighborhood of Dedinje where high-ranking politicians and foreign diplomats reside. Despite being raised an atheist in a family of communists, Arkan made a point of showing public respects to the Serbian Orthodox Church, especially its head Patriarch Pavle. Additionally, he observed and celebrated various religious holidays, often publicly. Some questioned the motives behind these public displays of his newfound religious spirituality and saw it as shameless self-promotion ploy in an attempt at ingratiation with the Serbian public.

On 3 November 1993, Arkan and his followers founded the Party of Serbian Unity, and he became its president, but the party lost parliamentary elections and failed to win seats despite an energetic promotional campaign. In the 2000 election, however, the party received 200,000 votes and won 14 seats in the Serbian parliament.

Vojislav Šešelj, a political rival of his, described the power Arkan wielded as early as 1987 during his testimony at the Milošević trial in 2005.

Arkan became an untouchable criminal figure in Belgrade and all of the former Yugoslavia. He was really so powerful, so strong financially that no one could do anything about him.... In 1993, I learned that Željko Ražnatović, Arkan, had in Belgrade kidnapped and taken to Erdut and there killed Isa Lero... also a man from the criminal underground who had come into conflict with Arkan. I even found a witness to the murder. I publicly accused Arkan. I submitted a report to the police. The police inspectors came to see me. We talked about it. I gave them all the information I had, but then the police inspector told me that they were aware of it but that they were unable to prove it because of the fear among the potential witnesses. So the police were quite well-informed about his criminal activities, but it was very hard to prove anything or to bring charges because his support network was so widespread, and this can be shown through various newspaper articles and so on. In one television statement, I told him when we were debating on TV, that he had pulled a sock over his head more often than I had pulled one on my feet.

In the postwar period after the Dayton agreement was signed, Arkan returned to his interests in sport and private business. The Serb Volunteer Guard was officially disbanded in April 1996 with the threat to be reactivated in case of war emergency. In June of that year he took over a second division soccer team FK Obilić which he soon turned into a top caliber club, even winning the 1997/98 Yugoslav league championship. According to a book by Franklin Foer, How Football Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, Arkan threatened players on opposing teams if they scored against Obilić.

This threat was underlined by the thousands of veterans from his army that filled their home field, chanting threats, and on occasion pointing pistols at opposition players during matches. One player told the British football magazine FourFourTwo that he was locked in a garage when his team played Obilić. Europe's football governing body, UEFA, considered prohibiting Obilić from participation in continental competitions because of its connections to Arkan. In response to this, Arkan stepped away from the position of president and gave his seat to his wife Ceca. Arkan was also a chairman of the Yugoslav Kick-boxing Association.

Arkan has been accused of being involved in protection rackets, extortion, and the smuggling of oil and luxury items. Later he pursued more legitimate business and had about 400 people working for him. He owned casinos, discos, gas stations, pastry shops, stores, bakeries, restaurants, gyms, as well as a private security agency.

Arkan was unofficially allied with Slobodan Milošević, and operated under his control, although he was fairly independent in his day-to-day actions and decisions. Contacts between the men were usually carried out through a mediator Radovan "Badža" Stojičić, Serbia's police chief and Milošević's close associate, who was assassinated in April 1997.

In August 1998, when tensions over Kosovo had already begun, Arkan tried to get close to the West, writing a letter of support to U.S. president Bill Clinton over the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In the letter he expressed condolences for the victims that died in the attack, and warned Clinton of the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. An excerpt from his letter reads: "Mr President... do not allow that terrorism continues in this part of Balkan in the Serbian state, which is forever a friend of your state." Clinton ignored him and never responded to the letter.

Role in the Kosovo War

According to chief judge Richard May from the United Kingdom, the ICTY issued an indictment against Arkan on 30 September 1997 for war crimes of genocide against the Muslim population, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva convention of 1949 for customs and traditions of war. The warrant was kept sealed and was not made public until 31 March 1999, a week after NATO bombing in Yugoslavia had begun. Arkan's indictment was made public by Louise Arbour, then UN court's chief prosecutor.

In the week before the start of NATO bombing – as the Rambouillet talks collapsed – Arkan appeared at the Hyatt hotel in Belgrade, where most Western journalists were staying, and ordered all of them to leave Serbia.

During the NATO aerial bombardment of Serbia, Arkan denied the war crime charges against him in interviews he gave to foreign reporters during the Kosovo War. Arkan blamed NATO for the bombing of civilians and creating refugees of all ethnicities, and stated that he would deploy his troops only in the case of a NATO direct ground invasion. After the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which killed three journalists and led to a diplomatic row between the U.S. and People’s Republic of China, NATO and various Western media claimed the building might have been targeted because the office of the Chinese military attaché was being used by Arkan to communicate and transmit messages to his paramilitary group, the Tigers, in Kosovo. As no one had any proof for this claim it was immediately withdrawn from the media.

ICTY indictment

In March 1999, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced that Željko Ražnatović (Arkan) had been indicted by the Tribunal, although the indictment was only made public after Arkan’s assassination.

According to the indictment Arkan should have been prosecuted on 24 charges of crimes against humanity (Art. 5 ICTY Statute), grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (Art. 2 ICTY Statute) and violations of the laws of war (Art. 3 ICTY Statute), for the following acts:

• Forcibly detaining approximately thirty Muslim Bosniak men, in an inadequately ventilated room of approximately five square metres in size.
• Transporting twelve non-Serb men from Sanski Most to an isolated location in the village of Trnova and shooting them, killing eleven of the men and critically wounding the twelfth.
• Transporting approximately sixty-seven Bosniak Muslim men from Sanski Most, Sehovci, and Pobrijeze to an isolated location in the village of Sasina and shooting them, killing sixty-five of the captives and wounding two survivors.
• Forcibly detaining approximately thirty-five Muslim Bosnian men in an inadequately ventilated room of about five square metres in size, withholding from them food and water, resulting in the deaths of two men.

It is claimed that Arkan was individually responsible for the crimes alleged against him in this indictment pursuant to Art. 7 § 1 of the ICTY Statute. But Arkan was also or alternatively criminally responsible as a commander for the acts of his subordinates pursuant to Art. 7 § 3 of the ICTY Statute, since he had at all times the complete authority to direct and control all of the actions of the members of his paramilitary unit.

Assassination

 

Hotel Intercontinental

 

Arkan was assassinated, on 15 January 2000, 17:05 GMT, in the lobby of Belgrade's elite InterContinental Hotel, a location where he was surrounded by other hotel guests. The killer, Dobrosav Gavrić, was a 23-year-old police mobile brigade's junior member. Gavrić had ties to the underworld and was on sick leave at the time. He walked up alone towards his target from behind. Arkan was sitting and chatting with two of his friends and, according to BBC Radio, was filling out a betting slip. Gavrić waited for a few minutes, calmly walked up behind the party, and rapidly fired a succession of bullets from his CZ-99 pistol. Arkan was shot in his left eye and lapsed into a coma on the spot. His bodyguard Zvonko Mateović put him into a car, and rushed him to a hospital, but he died on the way. According to an article on NPR, Milošević's own men may have killed him for knowing too much.

According to his wife, Svetlana Ceca Ražnatović, Arkan died in her arms as they were driving to the hospital.

Arkan's companions, Milenko Mandić, a business manager, and Dragan Garić, a police inspector, were also shot to death by Gavrić. Gavrić was shot and wounded immediately after by Arkan's bodyguard, Zvonko Mateović, and fell unconscious. A female bystander was seriously wounded in a shootout between the two as well. After complicated surgery, Gavrić survived, but remained disabled and a wheelchair user as result of a spinal wound.

Željko Ražnatović Arkan was buried in Novo groblje, Belgrade with military honours by his volunteers and with funeral rites on 20 January 2000. Around 30,000 people attended the funeral.

 

Arkan's grave

 

In reaction to the death, Serb sentiments varied across the political spectrum. For those who sympathised with his anti-Muslim rhetoric, he was a war hero, but for many who had seen and heard of his and the Tigers' actions, as well as his apparent political connections, feared him too much to make any public comment at the time.

Trials and rumours

Dobrosav Gavrić pleaded innocent and never admitted to committing the crime. He was found guilty and sentenced to 19 years in prison. His accomplices received from 3 to 15 years each, after a year-long trial in 2002. However the district court verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court because of "lack of evidence and vagueness of the first trial process".

A new trial was conducted in 2006, ending on 9 October 2006 with guilty verdicts upheld for Gavrić as well as his accomplices Milan Đuričić and Dragan Nikolić. Each man received 30 years in prison. Only Nikolić is actually serving the sentence while Gavrić and Đuričić have been on the run for years.

Still, the murder's background and identities of the person(s) who ordered it remain unclear and subject of rife speculation. According to one rumour, Marko Milošević, the son of Yugoslavia's president at the time, Slobodan Milošević, was said to have had a harsh quarrel with Arkan over control of oil-smuggling rackets. NPR reported that he was more likely someone who simply knew too much when war crimes trials were becoming a reality for the Milošević regime.

Yet another rumour claims that Borislav Pelević, Arkan's close associate and his successor as president of Party of Serbian Unity, served as the "inside man" for the plot against Arkan. Security services also wiretapped Arkan shortly before his murder; for four months the group allegedly followed Arkan's movements and whereabouts, learning his habits.

On 15 January 2008, the 8th anniversary of Arkan's death, his sister Jasna Diklić accused Andrija Drašković, a controversial businessman with alleged ties to the Mafia, of being behind her brother's murder. She further accused Serbian state institutions of "protecting Arkan's murderers Gavrić and Đuričić, and not doing anything to apprehend them".

According to 1994 relation of SISMI, Arkan sent one of his most trusted men, Radovan Stanisc to Italy to start relationship with Camorra boss Francesco Schiavone. Arkan asked Schiavone for arms for his guerrillas and the participation of Schiavone in solving two crucial problems: quieting the Albanian mobsters, because they stopped his war by blocking the weapons route, and making the money arrive in Serbia under the form of humanitarian aid. In exchange the near entrepreneurs clans acquired at optimal prices companies, enterprises, stores, masserie, breedings in half Serbia.

Personal

Arkan fathered nine children by five different women.

His eldest son Mihajlo was born in Göteborg, in 1975, from a relationship with a Swedish woman, Agneta. In 1992, 17-year-old Mihajlo decided to move to Serbia in order to live with his father. During this time the teenager was photographed wearing the uniform of his father's paramilitary unit during the Yugoslav Wars, the youngster participated in combat operations in Knin,Srebrenica. After the trial in July 2012 Mihajlo ordered to pay Commercial bank in Belgrade more than 3000000 din for credit. Court process is not yet over.

Then followed two daughters: Sofia from relations with a Belgian woman and Anđela (born 1980) with a Belgrade actress. Arkan acknowledged paternity of each of his three children that were born out of wedlock.

Arkan's first wife was Natalija Martinović, a Spanish language professor, with whom he had four children: daughter Milena, twin sons Vojin and Nikola, and another daughter Maša. Their divorce became official in December 1994.

 

Arkan's best known wife Ceca, famous Serbian folk singer

 

Since 1993 Arkan was involved with the popular folk singer Svetlana "Ceca" Veličković, 21 years his junior. Their lavish wedding ceremony on 19 February 1995 occurred as a day-long media production carried live on TV Pink with different locations and changes of clothing (at different points of the ceremony Arkan alternated between World War I Serb military uniform and traditional Montenegrin attire). "Ceca" bore him two more children, son Veljko and daughter Anastasija.

In June 1994, sometime after her separation from Arkan, Natalija Martinović and their four children left Yugoslavia and moved to Athens, Greece where Arkan bought them an apartment in the suburb of Glyfada. After Arkan's death Martinović disputed his will, claiming that Ceca, his second wife, doctored it. In May 2000, she sued Ceca over ownership of Arkan's assets including the villa at 3 Ljutice Bogdana Street in which he and Ceca lived (and Ceca continues to reside in to this day), claiming it was built with funds from a bank loan Martinović and Arkan took out in 1985. The court eventually ruled against Martinović. The court agreed with her assertions that the villa was built with money from a 1985 bank loan taken out by her and Arkan, but also found that she forfeited any rights in future division of that asset when she signed the property over to Arkan in 1994 before moving to Greece.

In 2012 Arkan's and Natalija's son Vojin again accused Ceca of falsifying Arkan's will.