Six gangsters convicted of conspiracy

Croatia (AP):

Six alleged members of a crime gang were convicted yesterday of conspiring to assassinate a well-known journalist and a fellow worker in downtown Zagreb on October 23, 2008, which shocked Croatia as it was recovering from a war.

A prosecutor said the car bombing that killed Ivo Pukanic, editor-in-chief of a political weekly Nacional, and his marketing director, Niko Franjic, may have been motivated by Pukanic's writing about organised crime. The Zagreb district court sentenced the main suspect, Zeljko Milovanovic, who was tried in absentia, to the maximum 40 years in prison. The court ruled that Milovanovic planted the bomb that exploded under Pukanic's car. The five other defendants were sentenced to 15 to 33 years in prison.