23 October 2008
Ivo Pukanic and Niko Franjic
Explosion
Ivo Pukanic, owner of the Zagreb-based political weekly Nacional, and Niko Franjic, marketing director of the same weekly, were killed when a bomb exploded outside the paper’s building.
The bomb was planted beneath Pukanic’s Lexus sedan in downtown Zagreb and exploded at around 6:30 p.m., killing him and Franjic. Pukanic and Franjic were close to but not inside the car. Nacional is one of a handful of Croatian newspapers with a national reach that regularly published news on politically sensitive topics.
A Reuters report said Nacional often exposed corruption and human rights abuses. In April, Pukanic reported to the police an attack by an identified assailant who approached him near his apartment house, brandished a handgun and fired, narrowly missing the journalist. The attacker was never apprehended.
