ATTORNEY ZVONIMIR HODAK Father of the murdered Ivana Hodak: police investigators are considering the possibility that the murder of his daughter was punishment for something he did or failed to do The police investigation into the murder of Ivana Hodak has gone beyond Croatian borders. That was official confirmed last weekend by police investigators. Special teams of police investigators have for some time now been carrying out a broad-reaching analysis and investigation into whether the failed flight of Vladimir Zagorec from Austrian to the Sudan or Venezuela, and Zagorec's extradition to Croatia, has angered the organisers of the flight close to Russian military circles, who then killed Ivana Hodak. The motive for the murder could be to punish attorney Zvonimir Hodak for something he failed to do or did poorly, and at the same time a message to Vladimir Zagorec to keep silent about it all, because someone close to him could come to grief. The Croatian police and secret services are focusing on another less known, but very important fact in this regard, and that is the engagement of Ivana Hodak in the Zagorec case. They were prompted to do so by two, already somewhat forgotten, letters from retired members of Russian special units and secret services, received by the offices of President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader back in October of 2007. On the same date, 6 October 2008, only a year later, Ivana Hodak was killed. Whether this is a bizarre coincidence or something else remains for the investigation to establish. At a press conference held on 11 October 2007 Zvonimir Hodak handed out the cited letters to Croatian reporters, and standing right beside him was his daughter, the murdered Ivana Hodak, which is why police investigators suspected that she too may have had contacts with the Russian military. Investigators are trying to find a motive for the murder of Ivana Hodak in the case, and much of the outcome of the investigation in that vein lies on Zagorec's attorney Zvonimir Hodak and on Vladimir Zagorec personally.

Their willingness to disclose all related to Zagorec's relations with retired members of the Russian military and former members of the Russian secret services, especially over the past few years, and the way in which Ivana Hodak was involved in the entire case could resolve this part of the investigation, i.e. eliminate or confirm the police's suspicions. Data is being collected together with the Austrian police about whether the group that had been preparing Zagorec's flight is in any way connected to the letters sent to the Croatian national leadership in October of 2007.

"I beg you personally, and we too shall for our part invest all our efforts to see all of the charges against the general dismissed", read, among other things, the letter from Vladimir Kiselev, the president of the Moscow branch of the Vympel Garant association, which gathers former members of Russian special units and secret services, sent to the President's national security advisor Sasa Perkovic just over a year ago. The Office of the President characterised the letter as threatening. Everything that the Croatian public had heard about the letters sent to Government and the President's Office was carefully controlled and planned by the top people in the Croatian secret services right up to Hodak's announcement on 11 October of 2007, and that was to try to provoke Hodak to establish in what measure he was linked to Zagorec's associates and whether they trusted him. The ploy was successful, a story was, namely, leaked to the public that threatening letters had come from the Russian mob. That, of course, was not entirely true, but was in part.

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THE MOSCOW CONNECTION At the height of the abortive Zagorec operation to, with the help of Susanna Bunjevac, compromise
The temperamental Hodak could not resist responding and only two days later he handed reporters all of the correspondence directed from Russian military and spy organisations to the Croatian national leadership. It became clear then that Hodak had in fact become a person of great trust to Vladimir Zagorec and of all those involved in his attempt to thwart his extradition to Croatia. There was no attention given at the time to the fact that Ivana Hodak was with him at the press conference, and after her murder the police presumes that she was part of the team that was engaged in Zagorec's defence. Police investigators are particularly interested in where Ivana Hodak has travelled over the past year, with whom she contacted and at whose orders, i.e., to what extent she was unofficially involved in the defence of Vladimir Zagorec. Seeking a possible motive as to why it was Ivana Hodak, in fact, that had to be killed if the murder is in fact linked to Zagorec, a police official close to the investigation has offered an explanation. Had the criminal group decided to liquidate Zagorec's family, it would then have found itself in a real mess, as Zagorec would have nothing more to lose and would probably cooperate with Croatian investigators.

Also, it also probably involves big money and the games being played around Zagorec's assets, real estate and bank accounts, so that nothing was allowed to happen to Zagorec or his family until the people who had prepared his flight had gained financially. Besides, Zagorec knows everything about the people involved in his flight, very possibly about those who have made use abroad of tens of millions of US dollars at the expense of the Croatian effort to arm itself, and his flight was also planned partly so that Zagorec would never speak about it before a Croatian court. If the murder of Ivana Hodak is linked to the Zagorec case and the involvement of retired members of the Russian secret services and special units in his flight, Ivana Hodak may have been murdered for two reasons. The criminal group may have wreaked its revenge on Zvonimir Hodak, whom it feels is responsible for compromising Zagorec's flight. Secondly, Ivana Hodak might have been murdered to send Zagorec an unambiguous message that something similar could happen to his family if he cooperates with Croatian investigators and uncovers the chain of war profiteers abroad who are now, in their countries, respectable people, as they have "laundered" the money earned from the arms deals through legal enterprises.

Zagorec initially prepared the flight from Austria in collaboration with people close to the Russian military. These people had already prepared forged diplomatic papers with a new identity. The documents need not necessarily have been forged, but could have been originals, with his picture, but an altered identity. Zagorec was to have paid the production of these papers. However, for reasons yet unknown, Zagorec panicked and changed his mind. He told them the documents were not needed. According to the information available to Nacional, Zagorec told the Austrian police that these people intended, in fact, to abduct him, which created quite serious problems for Zagorec's Russian friends. The move on Zagorec's part infuriated them. Instead of secret allies, Zagorec gained powerful new enemies. His allies abroad probably know very well why Zagorec acted as he did, i.e. who convinced him to make the move whereby he double-crossed them. Zagorec's extradition to Croatia was a sign to them that a strong message had to be sent to him right away, before he began negotiating with Croatian investigators.

The police had wanted to question Vladimir Zagorec, who is in Remetinec prison, but a problem cropped up as that could not be done without an investigating judge or his attorney, Zvonimir Hodak. Considering that he was the father of the murdered person, speculation surfaced that Zagorec could take on a separate attorney. In the end Zagorec was questioned on Monday, and the questioning apparently lasted no more than five minutes. Zvonimir Hodak said that his client was unable to offer the police a single relevant bit of information. Considering this statement from Zvonimir Hodak, it is hard to imagine that the police will have his and Zagorec's help in their efforts to find out the truth about Ivana Hodak's murder, which is hard to imagine, but makes sense. It would be logical for Hodak, because his daughter was murdered, to try to convince Zagorec to help the police in that regard: that is what any father who wanted to discover the identity of his child's murderer would do. Hodak, however, evidently does not believe so, and it is likely that he is the only one who knows why. After questioning over 300 persons the police still has nothing concrete. Police investigators have confirmed for Nacional that the investigation is certain to last for months if the murder is connected to international crime rings. What has been established beyond a doubt is that no one heard the gunshots in the stairwell, so that the murder was surely committed using a silenced handgun.

BIG BROTHER The theory according to which the killer ran towards Ban Jelacic square seems unlikely given the number of cameras in the area, but the many cameras there also bear witness to the fact that the killer could not have been loitering in front of the building before the murder The police are aware that the killer had accomplices on the route that Ivana Hodak took, and were likely in radio-contact. The killer did not wait all day for Ivana Hodak, loitering in an area well covered by surveillance cameras, but was rather informed of her movements. It is likely that the killer did not shadow Ivana Hodak on his own from the time she left her flat, the departure to the Croatian Bar Association and the return. That a stranger would spent an unusually long time in a stairwell would surely arouse the attention of the tenants. It is assumed that the killer approached Ivana Hodak, walking behind her, when she appeared in front of her building at No. 2 Hatzova street. He could not have killed her in the street for obvious reasons, but could also not have entered before she did, because the entrance can only be opened by tenants from their flats or using a key. The killer might eventually have entered the building by lying to someone about who they were, but any extended stay in the stairwell would have compromised them. Ivana entered her flat, and was killed when she left her flat again and made her way down to the exit from the building. The question that arises in that case, however, is how the killer knew that Ivana Hodak would leave her flat very quickly. Ivana Hodak could have spent all day in the apartment, and it is a question if the killer would have spent the entire day in the stairwell and gone unnoticed.

General Korzhakov's letterAlong with the Kiselev letter to the President's Office, a second letter, of similar content, was sent by retired General Alexander Vasilyevich Korzhakov, the former head of security to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. A special unit for the president's protection was formed under his command, which numbered 4,000 and included some of the best Russian commandos. Korzhakov's letter was also treated by the Croatian authorities as a threat to the President's security.