Three dead in Spanish shoot-out as police capture Rambo the Serbian fugitive
A FUGITIVE nicknamed Rambo, wanted over the murder of two men in Italy, has been arrested after a shootout in Spain in which he allegedly killed a further three people.
Norbert Feher, alias Igor Vaclavic, had been on the run since April, when he allegedly shot dead a park ranger and a barman in Italy. A massive manhunt was launched involving hundreds of police and soldiers, but the Serbian, who is rumoured to be a former soldier, went to ground.
Hiding in woods and marshland and apparently living off the land, he was dubbed Rambo by the Italian media for his apparent wilderness survival skills. The trail went cold until yesterday, when he was arrested after a gunfight at a farmhouse near the town of Teruel in Aragon, eastern Spain, in which he allegedly killed two Spanish police officers and a farmer.
He had been hiding out on a farm and opened fire after police closed in on him. He then escaped in a pickup truck but reportedly crashed the vehicle.
The alleged killer was found with three pistols, two of which he had taken from the Spanish officers he is said to have murdered. Police had been hunting Feher, who is also wanted for armed robbery and sexual assault in his native Serbia, ever since he went on the rampage in the northern Italian region of Emilia-romagna in the spring. He allegedly shot dead a 52-year-old man in an attempted robbery of a bar in the town of Budrio near Bologna on April 1.
A week later he was challenged by a park ranger and a police officer, who thought he might be a poacher. Feher shot both of them, killing the gamekeeper and seriously wounding the police officer, it is claimed.
Marco Minniti, the Italian interior minister, thanked the Spanish authorities for capturing the fugitive. “Our thoughts go to the victims in Budrio and the victims in Spain,” he said.
Tullio Del Sette, the commandant general of the Italian Carabinieri, said: “We never stopped looking for this very dangerous individual.”