Beneta was found dead in a wood in the Zadar area last year and was buried in Zadar as an unidentified person. His body was exhumed in the presence of police, a medical examiner and the Zadar County prosecutor, who declined to confirm to the press that the person exhumed was Beneta. The press were denied access to the cemetery during the exhumation.
Karlovac County deputy prosecutor Mladen Krajacic confirmed to Hina that the exhumation had been conducted following a court order.
Beneta was one of the three former special police accused of war crimes in Grubori, a village near Knin, where six Serb civilians were killed in the wake of Operation Storm in the summer of 1995. He was found dead hanging from a tree in a wood near Otric in the Zadar area in April 2011.
Seven months later, before the opening of the trial in the Grubori case, police identified the man based on DNA analysis as Igor Beneta, saying that he had committed suicide. There have been speculations recently that Beneta was killed because he apparently wanted to plead guilty in court and testify against his comrades in arms, and that attempts are being made to cover that up.
Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said late last month that an internal police investigation had found that Beneta had committed suicide. Nongovernmental organisations expressed suspicions about the finding, and the minister announced on Thursday that Beneta's body would be exhumed to remove any suspicions about the cause of his death.