Alleged Croatian secret agent Čedo Čolović was reportedly arrested while trying to flee to Croatia.
Serbian authorities arrested yesterday in Belgrade Čedo Čolović, who is a suspected Croatian spy. Čolović is believed to have passed information to Croatia about Serbian military forces, the strategic plans of the army and military equipment. It is also speculated that he sent information about Serbian officers so that Croatia could indict them for war crimes, reports Večernji List on September 3, 2016.
Čolović is a retired colonel and has dual citizenship, Serbian and Croatian. He was arrested while fleeing to Croatia. The arrest was conducted by the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) and the Senior Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. Čolović lived in Croatia and later moved to Serbia. He will be detained for 48 hours, and then we will be brought to questioning by prosecutors.
Čolović is a native of Drniš and he came to Serbia in 1995, after Operation Storm. He was allegedly drafted by the Croatian intelligence services in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be indicted for war crimes, which he possibly committed while he was a part of Serbian rebel forces during the Homeland War.
Croatian authorities have not commented on the arrest. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they were checking the information. Such a public arrest of a “spy” is unusual and adds a very serious element to rising tensions between Serbia and Croatia. In general, “spies” are arrested in secret and the information is not leaked to the media unless the country deliberately wants to send a message to the country which the agent worked for. Therefore, this arrest could be understood as a direct message of Serbia to Croatia at a time when relations between the two countries are poor and tensions are running high.
If there is a constant in the relationship between Serbia and Croatia in the last few years, then it would be a series of arrests of Croatian citizens in Serbia, some of whom are Croatian veterans, some are victims of mistaken identity, and some are apparently spies.
