Sabac Fugitive Used Child as Human Shield in Arrest
A 53-year-old man from Belgrade was arrested in Sabac after an international manhunt. He held a five-year-old child in front of him, the same tactic he used when he once shot at police.
Officers from Serbia’s Interior Ministry (MUP) arrested a Belgrade man identified as A. K. (53) in Sabac, ending a search that had been running on an international arrest warrant. According to MUP, the operation was carried out by a team from the Technical Directorate’s Department for Targeted Manhunts.
MUP announced the arrest on September 5, and according to Telegraf, the operation in Sabac itself took place the night before that announcement.
A. K. had been wanted for illegal production, possession, carrying and trafficking of weapons and explosives, failure to pay child support, and violating a court-ordered safety measure. He had already been sentenced, in a final ruling, to six and a half years in prison on those charges. He was taken into custody to serve that sentence on an order from the Higher Court in Belgrade.
A Child as a Shield, Again
During the arrest in Sabac, A. K. held his own five-year-old child in front of him. The child was not hurt in the operation.
The suspect was already known to special police units for this exact pattern of behavior. During an earlier attempt to arrest him, he opened fire on members of the police’s former Counterterrorism Unit while shielding himself behind the same child and resisting capture.
According to the ministry’s statement, officers tracked him down through sustained operational work, after the suspect had spent an extended period in hiding.
Same Day, Another Arrest in Novi Sad
On the same day the Sabac arrest was announced, the FAST team also detained a Hungarian national, D. T. (born 1995), in Novi Sad. He had been the subject of an international warrant issued by Interpol Budapest and is charged with multiple narcotics-related offenses carrying a prison sentence of up to 20 years. He was handed over to the Higher Court in Novi Sad.
Srpske novine covered both operations on the same day, in the article “Two Fugitives Arrested in One Day: Novi Sad and Sabac.”
