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Servs Fight Over War Criminal's Loot

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Barry Marjanovich

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Nov 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM11/11/00

The Sunday Times
November 12, 200

Wives battle for Arkan's £2m palace

Emily Milich and Tom Walker
A DISPUTE between the widow and a former wife of Arkan, the
murdered Serbian warlord, over his "wedding-cake" house in
Belgrade could trigger the break-up of his multi-million-pound
empire.

Natalia Martinovic, Arkan's second wife, is challenging a claim
by his widow, a folk singer called Ceca, to the £2m family home
that doubled as his headquarters. The villa, beside the Red Star
Belgrade football ground, is one of the city's landmarks.

The argument has isolated Natalia from the rest of Arkan's
sprawling family - even her own children have sided with Ceca.
The rift between the two women has worsened with Natalia's
discovery that work has begun without her permission on land
she inherited from Arkan. A house is being built there for Ceca's
sister, Lidija Velickovic.

Arkan, 47, whose real name was Zeljko Raznatovic, had eight
children by four women, three of whom he married. He left his
first wife, a Swede, and their son Mihailo after he shot his way
out of a Stockholm courtroom in 1986. He then fathered an
illegitimate daughter in Belgrade before marrying Natalia, who
had been the child's babysitter.

The marriage fell apart as Arkan, who had been a Yugoslavian
secret service agent and an accomplished bankrobber, turned
his hand to paramilitary warfare. His highly disciplined band of
"Tigers" was involved in the ethnic cleansing of swathes of
Croatia and Bosnia as Yugoslavia fell apart. Arkan's cult status
in a dysfunctional society was sealed when he married Ceca,
the bright young starlet of the "turbofolk" music circuit, in 1995.

Natalia had moved abroad the previous year, first to Italy and
then to Athens, where Arkan bought an expensive villa for her
and their four children. She returned to Belgrade after he was
gunned down in the Intercontinental hotel in January.

In May, Natalia filed a lawsuit alleging that Ceca, 27, had forged
her signature on a 1994 contract that made Arkan the owner of the
wedding-cake house. Natalia said she had never seen the
document and demanded a handwriting test.

Ceca, who is still observing a traditional year's mourning for her
husband, has rarely been seen since the shooting and has
refused to comment on the affair. But Dragan Krgovic, her
lawyer, has given a court documentary evidence that Arkan
transferred ownership of the house to Ceca. A judge has called
for witnesses and the case is scheduled to begin on November
20.

Natalia will say Arkan bought the property in 1984 for about
£70,000 and gave it to her after they split, at a time when he
was preoccupied with waging war and the house was relatively
undeveloped.

Ceca's lawyers are expected to argue that, after Natalia left, the
house was transformed at huge expense into a multi-tiered
architectural fantasy, guarded around the clock. It became the
headquarters of Arkan's Serbian Unity party. A patisserie was
established there, together with a private club for Arkan's
cronies. Ceca's case will hinge partly on the scale of investment
in the property while it was her marital home.

Natalia's frustration intensified with the disclosure that
Velickovic, Ceca's sister, was developing a plot of Arkan's land
nearby. "You must understand that Ceca and the rest of the
family are in mourning until January 15, which marks one year
of Arkan's death," Velickovic said. "We are not making any
comment until then." If completed, her house will be worth about
£400,000.

Relationships in the Arkan clan have long been tangled. It was
once rumoured in Belgrade that Mihailo had a brief affair with
Ceca after appearing in one of her pop videos. Arkan was said
to have cut off Ceca's hair in retaliation.

Lawyers predict that the squabble between the wives could
extend to other parts of Arkan's empire, such as Obilic football
club, which he built into a top side.

Other family assets include a business centre at the renovated
Obilic stadium, an import-export company, boutiques and a
property portfolio that includes houses on the Montenegrin
coast and in Belgrade.

Ceca also owns a fashion boutique in the Intercontinental,
where she and her sister witnessed Arkan's murder.

Kostunica: "I won't hand over Milosevic"

"I am the president"
http://www.heroes.net/warcrimes/warcriminals.html
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Excerpts:
The Guardian
Special report: Serbia

Martin Woollacott
Friday September 29, 2000

Vojislav Kostunica does not differ much from
Milosevic on Serbia's right to Kosovo; on
the status of the Bosnian Serb entity,
Republika Srpska; or on the desirability of
Montenegro staying with Serbia.

In choosing Kostunica in such large
numbers, it may be said that the Serbians
have voted for a clean Milosevic. They
voted for a man who has never said that
Serbia's objectives in the wars of the last
10 years were wrong; who denies the
authority of the International War Crimes
Tribunal in The Hague; who considers
Nato intervention an outrage: and who
insists that Serbia will not be a vassal
state of the west.

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