In 1969, Croatian General Vjekoslav Luburić was brutally murdered in a town a few kilometres from Valencia, Spain. Luburić was living in this country under the protection of Franco dictatorship. During World War II, Luburić was in charge of the concentration camps of Croatia, whose government was one of the allies of both Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Tens of thousands of people died in extermination camps of Nazi Croatia: Serbs, Jewish, gypsies, and Croatian opponents as well.
Franco’s regime press stated that Luburić was murdered by a spy sent by Tito, Yugoslavia’s communist President throughout the postwar years. The alleged spy was Ilija Stanić, a 23 years old man when the murder was carried out. Neither the Spanish police services nor Interpol succeeded in arresting Stanić, who vanished without trace for over 30 years.
He was still missing in 2003, when journalist Francesc Bayarri found him in Sarajevo. Francesc Bayarri’s ‘Meeting in Sarajevo’ tells the story of Luburić’s murder, Stanić’s flee, and the various versions on the motive of the crime. ‘Meeting in Sarajevo’ combines the genres of investigative journalism, fiction, and essay. From the very beginning, reader embarks on a journey which will take them from Franco’s Spain of far-off times to Balkan Peninsula of the present day.