The Serb National Council (SNV) said on Tuesday that Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic would pay his respects to Aleksandra Zec and her family as the first representative of the City of Zagreb to do so in the past 30 years.

The commemoration is being organised by the Antifascist League of Croatia and the SNV on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the murder of members of an ethnic Serb minority family, Aleksandra, Marija and Mihajlo Zec.

Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic and SNV leader Milorad Pupovac will also attend the commemoration.

On December 7, 1991, shortly after 11 pm, members of a special police unit under Tomislav Mercep came to the home of the Zec family in Zagreb’s Tresnjevka district and shot dead 38-year-old Mihajlo Zec as he tried to escape. His wife Marija and 12-year-old daughter Aleksandra, who witnessed the murder, were then taken in a van to the Adolfovac mountain lodge on Mount Medvednica, overlooking Zagreb, where they were killed and the lodge was burned down. The perpetrators were Munib Suljic, Sinisa Rimac, Igor Mikola, Nebojsa Hodak and Snjezana Zivanovic, according to the press release.

One of the murderers, Sinisa Rimac, later become the then Defence Minister Gojko Susak’s bodyguard and was even decorated by former President Franjo Tudjman.

“This crime is one of the most shameful chapters in recent Croatian history. The perpetrators were all members of special police forces who were acquitted due to procedural errors. Croatian institutions protected them and sent an intimidating message to Croatian citizens and shamed Croatia and the City of Zagreb,” a press release said.

Two surviving family members Dusan and Gordana Zec were paid one-off compensation in 2004, the only support they ever received from the state.

Aleksandra, Marija, and Mihajlo Zec are buried in Gornja Dragotinja (near Prijedor, northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mihajlo’s native town.