Defendant denies murdering Arkan

Belgrade - A man accused of killing Serb warlord Arkan in a hail of bullets in a hotel lobby pleaded innocent on the opening day of his trial yesterday. Mr Dobrosav Gavric, a policeman off duty at the time of the attack in January, testified from a wheelchair that he had been wounded in the shooting. He said he had been in the lobby of Belgrade's Intercontinental Hotel only to meet a friend. Arkan, whose real name was Zeljko Raznatovic, had been indicted for war crimes by a United Nations court for leading paramilitary units in Bosnia and Croatia.