HUNGARIAN POLICE have arrested three people after unearthing four bodies on an island in the river Danube in Budapest, and are searching for more people who could have been buried alive.
The remains were found in woods on Csepel island after a man reported being beaten and buried up to his neck by three assailants, who stole his credit card and forced him to reveal its pin code, while threatening to return if he gave them the wrong number.
Police subsequently arrested a man – whom Hungarian media said was Serb or Macedonian – who had been living locally and befriended his victim several weeks before the attack. They also arrested two alleged Hungarian accomplices.
The man admitted the killings and led police to a place deep in the woods, where they discovered the remains of four bodies buried in a large pit, Hungarian police were quoted as saying.
One media outlet reported that the alleged murderer was a former member of the Serb paramilitary group run by the late warlord Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic, which was notorious for its brutality during the 1990s Yugoslav wars. No one could be reached for comment at the Hungarian police service or the Serbian embassy in Budapest last night.
The survivor of the Csepel attack said he had been lured into the woods by the alleged killer to drink beer with a couple who lived there. After several drinks they set upon him, bound his hands and forced him to crouch in a hole before burying him up to his neck. They stole his valuables and made him reveal his bank card code.
The man said he managed to free his hands and clamber out of the hole, but was then attacked by his assailants’ guard dog. He said he fended off the dog and ran from the woods to seek help, but no one would assist him in his mud-caked and blood-spattered state. He called the police when he finally reached his flat.
Investigators were yesterday searching for more bodies that could be buried on Csepel, the largest island in the Danube, which has many sparsely inhabited areas of abandoned factories, scrub and woodland. Photographs of the crime scene showed a pit in a clearing in the woods, at an isolated spot that reporters said was far from main roads and difficult to access.