Real Madrid star Luka Modric has been accused of financing a Croatian spy to discredit a prosecutor who was investigating the midfielder for perjury after his transfer to Tottenham Hotspur.
According to Serbian newspaper Blic, Croatian superstar Modric, 33, allegedly has ties with former Serbian Ministry of Interior member Drazen Letic and Croatian Head of National Police Nikola Kajkic.
Blic claims Letic falsified documents and later gave them to Kajkic with the aim of discrediting Croatian prosecutor Miroslav Kraljevic who was investigating Luka Modric and Croatian right-wing politician Branimir Glavas at the time.
The alleged forged documents reportedly showed Kraljevic’s involvement with Yugoslav People’s Army operations against Croatian forces in 1991 as Croatia and Serbia were at war from 1991 to 1996.
Blic states: “As a reward for the attack on the prosecutor, Letic received money from Kajkic and it can be assumed from the content of their communication that the well-known Croatian footballer Luka Modric was the financier of these activities.”
The report went on to explain Modric’s incentive behind the operation saying: “Modric also had personal motives to discredit prosecutor Kraljevic.
“He was at that time the prosecutor for a case against the football player for giving false testimony in a case against the Mamic brothers, the football managers who mediated his (Modric’s) transfer.”
Modric testified in June 2017 over the details of his 2008 transfer to Tottenham from Dinamo Zagreb after some irregularities were reportedly found and he was later accused of perjury in March of 2018.
The charges were eventually dropped.
Former Dinamo Zagreb Executive Director Zdravko Mamic and three others were found guilty and sentenced to six and a half years in prison for siphoning 15 million EUR (12.78 million GBP) from Dinamo and for 1.2 million EUR (1.02 million GBP) in unpaid taxes.
Mamic fled to Bosnia Herzegovina and avoided capture. He was not extradited back to Croatia as he also has Bosnian citizenship.
The motives behind Letic and Kajkic’s alleged espionage are unclear.
Kajkic addressed the allegations in a press conference and said: “I did not personally meet or see Luka Modric, nor did he ever shake my hand or drink coffee with me.”
He went on to say the idea of Modric financing the alleged operation is “nonsense” and “lies” and added: “Everything you will read in the coming days is all nonsense.
“They obviously needed a name and the name turned out to be Luka Modric.”
The Serbian Security And Information Agency filed a criminal complaint against Letic and Kajkic on suspicion of having committed espionage at the Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia.
Kajkic is reportedly “inaccessible to investigative authorities” as he is “located outside the borders of Serbia”.
Neither Serbian nor Croatian authorities have issued a statement denying nor confirming the accusations. Modric has not issued a statement either.
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Story By: Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Golder’s News And Sport
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