ZAGREB, August 4, 2018 – Fourteen fans of the Hajduk football club from the southern Croatian coastal city of Split have each been sentenced to 15 days in prison and banned from entering Serbia for a year, a court in Belgrade has ruled, according to local media reports on Saturday.
The other 13 fans who were brought before the court have been acquitted, but will remain in police custody until the expiry of the 48-hour detention order issued earlier.
The court president Milan Marinović told Tanjug news agency that the fans were punished for “inappropriate, rude and wanton behaviour in a group”.
All the convicted fans have been sent to serve their sentences in Padinska Skela prison, outside Belgrade. They have the right to appeal.
The fans stole about 200,000 dinars (1,680 euro) worth of goods from a petrol station in Belgrade’s Vrčin suburb on Thursday while they were travelling to Sofia for a game against local side Slavia. One of them was suspected of spraying graffiti with symbols of the Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia during World War II. They were arrested on Friday on their way back from Bulgaria.
