Serbian man kills five, injures 22, in
cafe shooting
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[July 02, 2016]
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Five people
were killed and another 22 were wounded early on Saturday when a man
entered a cafe in northern Serbia and opened fire with an assault rifle,
police said.
Police arrested the suspect, a man in his late 30s identified only
as Z.S., immediately after the shooting during a local festival in
the village of Zitiste, around 80 kilometers north of Belgrade.
Nebojsa Stefanovic, the interior minister, told Belgrade's B92 TV
that Z.S. killed his estranged wife and a another woman, before
firing at others in the cafe with an assault rifle he illegally
owned.
"Jealousy could be a motive," he said. "He was a quiet man; he had
no criminal record."
Gordana Kozlovacki, the director of the hospital in the nearby town
of Zrenjanin, said 22 people were treated after the shooting. Seven
remained in a serious condition.
Serbia and most of the western Balkans are awash with hundreds of
thousands of illegal weapons following wars and unrest in the 1990s.
In a bid to reduce the number, Serbian police on Friday offered an
amnesty over surrendering or registering illegal weapons until
November.
Saturday's killings follow a number of mass shootings in Serbia in
recent years.
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![](../images/070216pics/news_q27.jpg)
A man talks to police officers at a cafe after a shooting during a
local festival in the village of Zitiste, north of Belgrade, Serbia
in this still image from video taken July 2, 2016. Courtesy of N1
via REUTERS TV
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Three years ago, 13 people died in a shooting spree in a village
near Belgrade, and last year six people were killed in a dispute
over a wedding in Serbia's north.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Mark Potter)
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