ZAGREB, 7 Dec, 2021 - The Serb National Council (SNV) said on Tuesday that Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević would pay his respects to Aleksandra Zec and her family as the first representative of the City of Zagreb to do so in the past 30 years.

The commemoration is being organised by the Antifascist League of Croatia and the SNV on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the murder of members of an ethnic Serb minority family, Aleksandra, Marija and Mihajlo Zec. 

Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milošević, and SNV president Milorad Pupovac will also attend the commemoration.

"This crime is one of the most shameful chapters in recent Croatian history. The perpetrators were all members of special police forces who were acquitted due to procedural errors. Croatian institutions protected them and sent an intimidating message to Croatian citizens and shamed Croatia and the City of Zagreb," a press release said.

Two surviving family members Dušan and Gordana Zec were paid one-off compensation in 2004 and that is the only support they received from the state.

Members of a special police unit under Tomislav Merčep came to the home of the Zec family in Zagreb's Tresnjevka district shortly after 11 pm on 7 December 1991 and shot dead 38-year-old Mihajlo Zec as he tried to escape. Marija and Aleksandra (12), who witnessed the murder, were then taken in a van to the Adolfovac mountain lodge on Mount Medvednica, overlooking Zagreb, where they were killed and the mountain lodge was burned down. The perpetrators were Munib Suljić, Siniša Rimac, Igor Mikola, Nebojša Hodak and Snježana Živanović, according to the press release.

One of the murderers, Siniša Rimac, later become the then Defence Minister Gojko Šušak's bodyguard and was even decorated by President Franjo Tuđman.

Aleksandra, Marija i Mihajlo Zec are buried in Gornja Dragotinja (near Prijedor, northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mihajlo's native town.

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