RFE/RL NEWSLINE
Vol. 1, No. 23, 2 May 1997

HUNGARIAN POLICE SAY EXTORTION GANG ARRESTED.
The chief of Hungary's National Police, Laszlo Forgach, said on
30 April that the recent arrest of 13 suspected extortionists
this week could bring an end to a wave of bombings in
Budapest. Forgach said the arrested men also are believed to
have been part of an illegal fuel sales ring. Another National
Police official, Colonel Istvan Miko, said two dozen bombings
in Budapest since September were an attempt to divert
attention from the group's evasion of fuel taxes and excise
duties. Miko said the unpaid taxes amount to billions of
forints.

SERBS STONE RETURNING REFUGEES IN BRCKO. Bosnian
Serb crowds yesterday attacked two buses carrying Muslim
refugees on a visit to their homes in the strategic northern
town of Brcko. The Social Democratic Party organized the trip,
during which party leader Zlatko Lagumdzija was among those
wounded. Serb youths also stoned a bus bringing in U.S.
troops from Hungary. Earlier that day, Brcko's exiled Muslim
mayor, Munib Jusufovic, resigned to protest what he called
decisions by the international community to force returning
Muslims to take out Bosnian Serb identity papers, an RFE/RL
correspondent reported from Sarajevo.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               Copyright (c) 1997 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx