A difficult task we said because there is notably no guarantee that the two Serbs will be present in the dock next week. Likewise, 34 years later, some of the witnesses heard during the inquest would have died.
The holding of a first trial was already an event in itself in 2016, as the investigations seemed lost in advance. Those close to Enver Hadri had directly underlined the political nature of the crime but the witnesses on rue Saint-Bernard were unable to see the faces of the perpetrators and only the stolen license plate of the vehicle could be noted. The investigation which nevertheless made it possible to fairly quickly identify Veselin Vukotic was also disrupted by the war which would tear Yugoslavia apart.
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Shortly after the war, former intelligence officer Bozidar Spasic spoke in the press and in a book, clearly indicating that he was at the origin of the operation orchestrated by his services against Enver Hadri.
In 2004, an anonymous witness interviewed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) under the code “C48” brought up the name Veselin Vukotic. The alleged gunman of the Yugoslav intelligence services would have openly boasted about the assassination of Enver Hadri in front of C48. In 2006, he was arrested under a false identity in Spain. Veselin Vukotic was extradited to Serbia in December 2008, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for another murder committed in Belgrade in 1997. After eight months of detention, he was released.
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In 2007, Andrija Draskovic was arrested in Split in Croatia on the basis of the European arrest warrant issued by Belgium in the context of this case. Renowned mafioso from Belgrade, he would have played an essential role as intermediary between the Yugoslav secret services and the criminals responsible for the dirty work. Against all expectations, the Croatian authorities released him on bail of 100,000 euros a few days later. Draskovic then vanished.
