- The man was previously convicted and jailed for terrorist offenses.
- The man was wanted in connection with another individual killed by police.
- The man was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 13.5 years in prison for his involvement.
“During the arrest, he resisted, fired three to four shots at the police, and members of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit neutralized him,” Dacic told local media.
The interior minister added that the man had previously been convicted and jailed for terrorist offenses. The police operation occurred in the village of Hotkovo, near Novi Pazar, which is a historical and political center for Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority. Police reported that the man was wanted in connection with another individual killed by police in Belgrade on June 29.
This person had shot a police officer in the neck with a crossbow outside the Israeli embassy. Officials described the attack in the Serbian capital as a “terrorist act” and identified the assailant as a Serbian convert to Islam.
Police said the man killed Saturday night was the landlord of the attacker from June, who had lived in his apartment in Novi Pazar before carrying out the embassy attack. According to the police minister, the man had been on the run since the June incident. Local media described the man killed in Novi Pazar as a “well-known follower” of the Wahhabi movement, a purist form of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia.
The interior ministry confirmed that he was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 13.5 years in prison for his involvement in an armed conflict with police officers in the village of Trnava, near Novi Pazar. At that time, police also arrested 14 of his associates. They faced charges for planning terrorist attacks in Belgrade and Novi Pazar.
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