He was also in the stands of the San Nicola stadium in Bari: Sinisa Mihajlovic kicked and scored the fourth penalty in the final and Red Star Belgrade won the 1991 European Cup. And he was Zeljko Raznatovicknown as the commander Arkanthe “Arkan’s Tiger”, leader of the ultras team of the Serbian capital team and leader of the paramilitary group the Tigers, responsible for crimes against humanity in the Balkan wars between Croatia and Bosnia. When he died years later, assassinated in a sort of execution in a hotel lobby in Belgrade, Mihajlovic dedicated an affectionate obituary to him. And for that obituary he was always convicted.
It is the side considered controversial and obscure in the life and career of the Serbian footballer, for thirty years in Italy and therefore Italian by adoption for his past between fields and benches. Ball that assumed great influence and significance in the explosion and disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Mihajlovic died today, aged 53, as confirmed by his family. Since 2019 he wrestled with one acute myeloid leukemia. In addition to the characteristics of a surly defender but with a delicate foot, football fans and him had not learned to appreciate him also for the character with which he had conducted his fight against the disease. Sinisa Mihajlovic had never spared himself, not even in recounting the painful chapter of the wars that had ravaged his country.
Who was Zeljko Raznatovic
Violent and fratricidal wars. Arkan was born in 1953in Slovenia: two marriages, seven children, wanted in various European countries and in prison in Sweden, Belgium, Holland and also in Italy. He had been among the most wanted men by Interpol in the 1980s for his crimes covered by his activity as a secret agent on behalf of the Yugoslav government (for UBDA, the Yugoslav secret police). The nickname perhaps came from a fake Turkish passport or perhaps from a tiger that appeared in one of his favorite comics of his. The first arrest under the age of 18 for the robbery in a Zagreb bar. Back in Serbia he had united the Red Star supporters with his own Delije“the heroes”, and the company had given him a pastry shop that became his “hideout”.
He had been summoned by the Yugoslav leaders to organize about three thousand men of the voluntary militias he had recruited among the fans of Marakana, the stadium of the Star, and among the inmates in Belgrade prisons. Raznatovic then managed the Military Training Center of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs and formed the “Serbian Volunteer Guard” which would take the name “Arkan’s Tigers” – apparently after the tiger cub the commander claimed for stealing from the Zagreb Zoo – which since autumn 1991 has operated as a paramilitary unit along the Serbo-Croatian border.
The Crimes of Arkan’s Tigers
Arkan’s paramilitary unit was then operating as part of the 6th Army Corps Brigade (JNA). The massacre of 17 people dates back to April 4, 1992 a Bijelijna by the unit: with a bomb in the Istanbul Cafe and another bomb at the butcher in the village. The Tigers would be charged with another 400 murders over the next few days. The president of the Serbian-controlled area, Biljana Plavsicsi, traveled to Bijeljina to kiss Arkan in front of television cameras. More carnage a Brcko: 600 victims in Bosnian-Muslim settlements complete with a concentration camp. 40 victims in front of the mosque of Glogovac. Over 20 thousand people massacred a Prijedor and surroundings, 700 BC Sanski Mostto Cerska 700 people.
The Tigers were also accused of helping Ratko Mladic carry out the Srebrenica genocide, which killed more than 8,000 people.. The unit remained active until the last day of the war in Bosnia, distinguishing itself for brutality and ethnic cleansing between Banja Luka, Sanski Most and Prijedor. Raznatovic through looting, smuggling weapons, petrol, cigarettes and stolen cars amassed a fortune. He had been president of a minor league football club, Belgrade’s FK Obilic, who also won the championship and participated in the Champions League. The presidency passed to his wife, the folk singer Svetlana “Ceka” Velikrovichwhom he had married in 1995, after the attacks in the Italian press.
Raznatovic was also elected to Parliament in 1992. It was former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger who pointed it out as responsible for ‘ethnic cleansing’ operations for which he was also accused by the judges of the Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. On the eve of the war of Kosovo Arkan said threateningly: “If NATO troops enter Yugoslavia my men will fight against them”. According to NATO, in the first phase of the war, his gangs had killed hundreds of Albanians in the Pec area. In the last months of his life he had distanced himself somewhat from the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. He was killed on January 15, 2000 in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade where he was sitting and chatting with two of his friends. A 23-year-old policeman on leave, Dobrosav Gavric, shot and also killed two other collaborators of Arkan present. The news gave rise to several punitive expeditions. About twenty thousand people attended his funeral.
Friendship with Mihajlovic
Sinisa Mihajlovic called him “a hero for the Serbian people” in her obituary which, she admitted in an interview with The Corriere della Sera, he would have rewritten even years later. He was also accused of asking fans of the Lazio to display a banner dedicated to Arkan at the Olimpico. And indeed a banner was displayed in the match against Bari, in the 19th of the Serie A championship: “Honour to Arkan’s Tiger”, of which the footballer, however, said he was a stranger. “You talk about atrocities, but you weren’t there. I was born in Vukovar, Croats were the majority, we Serbs were the minority there. In 1991 there was a Serb hunt: people who had lived together for years shot at each other. It is as if today the Bolognese decided to make a clean sweep of the Apulians who live in their city. It’s right? Arkan came to defend the Serbs in Croatia. His war crimes aren’t justifiable, they’re awful, but what’s not awful about a civil war?”.
The first meeting with Mihajlovic when he played for Vidiova. On the sidelines Arkan and it was a hard-nosed fight. The footballer didn’t know who he was when he found out “the name sends a shiver down my spine”, he said in his autobiography The game of life. On the way back, no game for Sinisa, just to be sure, who went to the stands and then to eat an ice cream outside the stadium: it was Arkan’s ice cream shop. The third meeting when the midfielder arrived at the Red Star. “Arkan was kind, affable, easygoing. Friendly. When he was quiet, he could be pleasant. A totally different man from the bloodthirsty militia leader during the conflict that would devastate the country.”. For anything, just in case, the head of the ultras left him his phone number.
Mihajlovic has always distanced himself from the crimes committed by Arkan but has never denied that relationship, confirming what he had always maintained: that the friendship dates back to the times of the Red Star and that the ultra-paramilitary “always behaved well” with him and his teammates. “When they moved from Vukovar to Belgrade, my mother called her brother, my uncle Ivo, and said to him: there’s war, save yourself, come to Sinisa’s house. He replied: why did you take your husband away? That Serbian pig was supposed to stay here so we’d butcher him. This was the climate. Then Arkan caught Uncle Ivo who had my phone number on him. Arkan called me: ‘There’s someone here who claims to be your uncle, I’ll take him to Belgrade’. I didn’t say anything to my mother, but I saved his life and hosted him for twenty days”.
In that same interview with Corriere della Sera Mihajlovic replied to those who had called him a fascist, on several occasions, during his career. “What does nationalist mean? I’m certainly not a fascist like someone said about the Arkan thing. I lived with Tito, I’m more communist than many. If nationalist means patriot, if it means loving my land and my nation, well yes I am”.
Professional journalist. He attended studied and graduated in languages. He attended Suor Orsola Benincasa’s School of Journalism in Naples. He collaborated with the AdnKronos news agency. He wrote about sports, culture, entertainment.
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Antonio Lamorte
