Speaking to reporters after leaving hospital on Friday, Svonja described the attack as "a politically motivated attempted murder" in connection with his involvement in efforts to achieve "reconciliation among Serbs and Croats in Croatia."
"I am the chairman of the committee for the organised departure of Serbs to vote in Croatia and that is probably the reason why I was attacked. I recognised some of the assailants, those are the people who also threatened Serbs who went to Croatia to vote two or three years ago," Svonja said in an interview with the Dnevnik newspaper. He added that the attackers were refugees from Croatia.
Svonja dismissed stories that the attack was prompted by some unsettled relations between him and his former business partners, whom Svonja allegedly owes EUR 20,000.
According to Dnevnik, several persons wielding baseball bats attacked Svonja and a friend of his in a restaurant in Novi Sad around 2000 hours on Wednesday. Svonja was seriously injured and was hospitalised.
Svonja headed the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) slate for the diaspora at the last parliamentary election in Croatia. The Union of Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina has over 170,000 members in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.