This is the face of a man police think is one of the most dangerous fugitives hiding out in South Africa.
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This is the face of a man police think is one of the most dangerous fugitives hiding out in South Africa. Police believe he is a member of a vicious eastern European crime syndicate run by the Serbian mafia.
They believe the man is an assassin and a convicted killer in Serbia who is wanted by Interpol. He is also the man who drove the vehicle of underworld boss Cyril Beeka when he was shot dead in Bellville in March.
Weekend Argus can reveal that Beeka’s driver, Sasa Kovacevic, who has been identified by Serbian and South African police as the alleged assassin and international fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, is out on R1 500 bail.
He has lived in South Africa for three years under the name Sasa Kovacevic.
Weekend Argus tracked him down yesterday and captured images of him while he checked in at the Table Bay harbour police station as part of his bail conditions.
A burly man with a bald head drove Kovacevic to the police station in a white BMW X5, after which he made his way, limping slowly, towards the station.
Upset at being snapped by a photographer and refusing a request for an interview, Kovacevic, 37, turned back towards his car and tried to hide his face with his jacket before climbing into the vehicle. The car sped away.
Despite the Serb’s release from custody, the Hawks insist he’s not a flight risk.
The file on the man known as Gavric reads like a spine-chilling Scandinavian thriller.
In 2006, he fled Serbia and skipped his 35-year jail sentence for assassinating Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic, a much-feared Serbian warlord and former bodyguard of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2002.
Raznatovic, better known as “Arkan” in the underworld, was Serbia’s most infamous wartime paramilitary leader and mafia boss.
Gavric was sentenced for killing “Arkan” and two other men who were with the mafia boss in the lobby of a hotel in Belgrade in 2000.
Although the Hawks say processes are under way to co-operate with Serbia, which wants the fugitive extradited to serve his sentence, it’s still unclear why, if police think Kovacevic is really Gavric, he is not now in custody.
Kovacevic was charged with possession of 5g of cocaine, some eight months after he was allegedly found in possession of the drug.
However, it’s believed that the real reason behind his arrest was to check his identity through various fingerprint tests which have been conducted over the past weeks.
Weekend Argus understands that Kovacevic, accompanied by his advocate Reuben Liddell, agreed to meet the police at the Bellville offices of the organised crime unit on November 1. Shortly afterwards, he appeared in court for possession of cocaine allegedly found in his bag left behind in Beeka’s blue BMW X5 vehicle.
He appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on November 1. The charge sheet confirms that he was granted R1 500 bail, paid by his attorney, Bertus Preller, from the law firm Abraham&Gross Incorporated in Shortmarket Street, Cape Town.
The State prosecutor in the case, a Mr Hanse, told the court Kovacevic had a fixed address, a clean record and no criminal cases pending against him. A South African passport number and identification number for him were also written on the charge sheet.
Kovacevic’s address was listed as 007 Paragon, Waterfront, instead of 006, Parergon, the actual address. He will make a second appearance at the court next month.
Weekend Argus visited Parergon, a luxury apartment at the V&A Waterfront, where Kovacevic lived a seemingly normal life on the groundfloor of the complex.
A security guard at the complex, Hilton Jonkers, said the man he knew as Sasa Kovacevic, had lived at 006 Parergon for some time, but had left the premises early last week.
“He dropped the keys of the apartment and arranged for a taxi, which fetched him and took him to the airport.”
Jonkers said a member of the Hawks had arrived seeking Kovacevic the day before he left.
Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said there was no need to keep Kovacevic in custody.
Intelligence sources have told Weekend Argus Kovacevic was being investigated in connection with Beeka’s murder after it emerged one of the shots fired in the killing came from inside Beeka’s vehicle. They also said he was arrested earlier this month.
The Hawks and a senior policeman have denied Kovacevic fired at Beeka, saying the injuries Kovacevic sustained during the drive-by shooting were too severe for him to have been involved. - Saturday Argus