Experts investigate British Embassy mailroom bomb

Croatian and British security experts were today following up leads after a mailroom bomb that injured a local employee at the British Embassy in the Croat capital Zagreb.

“It’s a sensitive extraterritorial issue,” police spokesman Zlatko Mehun said of the investigation following yesterday morning’s blast inside the embassy building, which is technically outside Croatian jurisdiction.

An explosive device was allegedly planted between a stack of daily newspapers, causing minor injuries to a Croatian employee who first tried to open the heap.

“Croatian police were leading the investigation with the permission and co-operation of British officials,” Mehun said, adding that he could not divulge further specifics about the “unique investigation” until it was completed.

Although some local analysts were not excluding the possibility of a foreign terrorist group being behind the attack, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and most military experts were convinced the blast was aimed at hampering Croatia’s efforts to join the European Union.

Britain is currently heading the European Union, which has postponed membership talks with the Balkan country due to its failure to capture a top war crimes suspect.

The EU – and particularly Britain – insists that retired Gen. Ante Gotovina, at large since The Hague-based UN court indicted him in mid-2001 with wartime atrocities against the Serbs, be arrested before Croatia can start negotiations to join the bloc.

Nationalists here, who revere Gotovina as a war hero, fiercely oppose demands for his arrest.

“There are people at home and abroad who wish to slow down Croatia’s bid to join the EU,” Sanader said yesterday.

“This model of attack, which is a warning bomb, is not typical of terrorist organisations like al-Qaida,” said Pavle Kalinic, a military expert. “It resembles more an act from a local crime milieu.”

The EU is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to open membership talks with Croatia this year. The country has struggled to convince the EU that it is serious in trying to locate Gotovina but that he has fled the country.

Meanwhile, the British Embassy has cleared away the minor damage caused by the blast and reopened its doors for normal working hours, said spokeswoman Tessa Fras.

“The embassy has reopened for consular and other affairs, including our visa section, which is also operating as usual,” Fras said.