TWO WOUNDED IN GANGSTER SHOWDOWN HAVE SLIM CHANCES TO SURVIVE

ZAGREB, March 23 (Hina) - Speaking of details of yesterday's gangster showdown in the downtown Zagreb in which two men - Vjeko Slisko and James Capau - sustained grave injuries, a spokesman for the Zagreb police said Capau had approached Slisko from behind, fired several bullets from a gun at him and ran from the scene. However, security guards of a nearby bank caught Capau and then Slisko's bodyguard Ivica Bertic alias Rus reached him and fired one bullet at his boss's assassin. Spokesman Goran Volarevic said at a news conference that two persons who had happened to be near Capau at the moment of his wounding, this morning recognised Ivica Bertic Rus at a photo in the police photo-album of criminals as the man who shot Capau. A warrant for Bertic's arrest was issued. Volarevic asked citizens to report to police anything they may learn about that man. At the scene of the showdown, at the Cvjetni Square, the police found a gun from which Bertic fired at Capau. The police found also "a few pieces of arms and some means of communication" at Capau. However, the spokesman declined to give any more detail about the founded arms and 'means of communications' in the interest of the further inquiry. Recalling that Capau (the Croatian citizen of the Belgian descent) was a suspect for the 1998 double murder in the eastern town of Cepin, reporters asked Volarevic why he was at large. The spokesman responded that th police pressed charges against him for that but the question why he was at large should forwarded to "bodies of the judiciary." According to the latest information from a Zagreb hospital where Slisko and Capau were yesterday admitted, both man underwent surgeries and are now on life-support machines. According to doctors, both patients have serious brain wounds, and their chances for the survival are slim. Spokesman Volarevic said the police could not yet completely reconstruct the event, as they were comparing statements of eye- witnesses. There have been some chronological differences in the reports of those witnesses, of whom 120 have so far been questioned. Volarevic said he had no information that policemen were near Capau at the moment when he was wounded. He could not confirm that Slisko had neither arms nor bullet-proof vest during the attack. Volarevic could not either confirm rumours that a few persons took part in the showdown. Asked whether he could confirm last night's statement of the State Prosecutor Radovan Ortynski who said Slisko was under police supervision as he was a part of the criminal milieu in the Croatian capital, Volarevic only said that if Ortynski had said it then it was so. Volarevic added that Slisko, Bertic and Capau had already police files in the Zagreb police department. The police had information about Capau's involvement in the arms smuggling. Slisko, known as "the King of Poker Machines" has so far survived five assassinations. In the assassination attempt in 1999, a passer-by Zoran Domini lost his life when a rocket was fired at Slisko from a shoulder-held rocket launcher. Slisko is believed to be the head of the clan which is at the war with another gangster clan, which used to be led by the killed Zlatko Bagaric, known as the Gambling King, and whose members are being currently tried at the Zagreb court. (hina) ms