As is to be expected, the triple murder that took place last Saturday in Split has gotten quite a lot of attention from the Croatian public and the media, and every day we seem to be getting more and more information about the killer, his troubled past, the victims, and the case overall.
Unfortunately, again, as can be expected in this era of fake news, it’s almost impossible to discern which information the Croatian media has been publishing is entirely true, which is partially true and which is blatant “fake news”.
So, first of all, let’s list some of the new information that can be somewhat independently confirmed: one of the most renowned Croatian lawyers, Branko Šerić, has officially become Filip Zavadlav’s lawyer. The original news of this development included the statement that he was hired “by the Facebook group started in support of Filip Zavadlav”.
It’s still unclear how exactly a Facebook group can hire a high-level lawyer (read this as: it’s obvious that somebody paid for Šerić, but wants to hide their identity behind the Facebook group). In the meantime, since we last posted about the crime, the group has been banned by Facebook, and other groups, most of them hidden and accessible only if you’re invited, have been started. Also, there are rumours of a big protest being organised in Split this Saturday, in support of Filip, but it’s unclear who’s organising it, and the Split police say they haven’t been informed of such an event.
Šerić has told the Croatian media that Filip Zavadlav has since been transported to Zagreb, to the hospital for the incarcerated persons in Svetošimunska street in Zagreb, where he is under constant supervision by the guards, as there are reasons to be afraid that some of the other people at the hospital might want to do harm to him, or that he could be a danger to himself.
Hopefully, the “constant supervision” will be somewhat better than it was in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who was also supposedly on suicide watch 24/7, and yet, somehow, managed to die in jail. Branko Šerić, Zavadlav’s attorney, wants an expert evaluation by a mental health professional to be performed on his client as soon as possible, which shouldn’t surprise anyone as some of the reports after his apprehension talked about him being completely deranged, not saying anything when questioned and even becoming suicidal.
One other person who has been in the focus of the Croatian media in the past few days is Etel Zavadlav, Filip’s mother. She is currently working in Austria, and has been extremely active on social media since the triple murder, but at the same time, a lot of nasty things from the family’s history have also surfaced.
Slobodna Dalmacija reports on her being convicted of abusing her children in 2008, when Filip and his younger brother (the one currently spending time in a commune for drug users in Montenegro) asked the police to help protect them from the physical and mental abuse perpetrated by their mother.
She spent 40 days in prison in Split for repeatedly abusing her underage children (yes, you read that correctly). Filip was supposedly not living with his brother, his mother is in Austria so the entire motive for the triple murder, presented as “he was afraid for his family, as the dealers threatened harm against his family members” becomes questionable, but the criminal investigation will surely show what exactly happened. Etel Zavadlav has also denied the claims that both she and Filip were convicted of trying to steal money from a church together, as was previously reported.
One other thing is thoroughly investigated by not just the police, but also by numerous Croatian intelligence services is how was Filip able to acquire an AK-47 gun. It’s illegal to possess such a gun in Croatia, so obviously it’s illegal to sell it, so whoever provided it to Zavadlav also committed a serious crime.
While there is still quite a lot of arms in the hands of the Croatian civilians, which is the result of a war which happened almost 30 years ago, it’s quite clear that a 25-year-old who committed a triple murder can’t say that the AK-47 is something he kept from the war, so investigating where and how he got it might lead to some interesting conclusions.
