- Nikola Kavaja
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Nikola Kavaja (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Каваја) (1933 – 10 November 2008) was a Montenegrin Serb nationalist and anti-communist known for his 1979 bombing of a Yugoslav consul’s home and the American Airlines Flight 293 hijacking.
Contents
Biography
Youth
Kavaja was born in the Zeta Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933, in the Old Serbia area of modern-day Montenegro to a family drawing descent from Dečani in Metohija. As a child he lived in Peć. In April 1941, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Yugoslavia and his family was split up and sent to different prison camps in Albania. In 1944 he returned to Peć to find his family. By his own account, he killed someone for the first time in his life that year when he pushed a wounded German soldier into a well.[1]
Military and intelligence career
Early in life, Kavaja served in the Yugoslav Air Force, studying at the Air Force Academy in Pančevo where he rose to the rank of colonel. Later he grew disillusioned with the communist regime, which controlled Yugoslavia, and joined a secret Anti-communist group. In June 1953, as part of his clandestine activities, he sabotaged gas tanks at the Sombor airport. He evaded arrest, and a man who was not involved in the explosion was tried and executed. When his commander in the secret group was arrested, he deserted the air force. He was arrested by Yugoslav authorities while attempting to cross the border into Austria; however, after serving four years of an 18-and-a-half year sentence, Kavaja escaped and made it to Austria. There, he was detained by Austrian authorities and transferred to an American Army base. After seven months of investigation by American authorities who suspected him of ties to the KGB, Kavaja began to carry out missions for the CIA against Yugoslavia and the USSR, including "sabotage, spying, exposing double agents, assassinations."[1]
According to Kavaja, one of his major assignments from the CIA was to assassinate Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia. Tito traveled to Brazil and Kavaja followed, but the chance to kill the president was foiled when Tito stayed indoors for his entire stay. Kavaja followed Tito from Brazil to Chile, Mexico and the United States. Upon arrival in America, he and his companions had to be especially careful because he was wanted by the FBI, which did not always share sources with the CIA.[1] Kavaja claimed that in 1971, he staked out Camp David, disguised as a Maryland State Trooper, in order to kill Tito, who was visiting United States President Richard Nixon. Once again, he was foiled when Tito stayed indoors.[1]
Freedom for the Serbian Fatherland
Kavaja was a central figure in an allegedly CIA-funded group called Freedom for the Serbian Fatherland (also known as SOPO). Kavaja claimed that this organization bombed Yugoslav embassies in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, Canada, and consulates in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto.[1]
In 1978, Kavaja and Sopo companions numbering over one hundred (including Stojilko Kajević) were arrested in New York by American law enforcement. Kavaja was released on $250,000 bail, and after visiting his family in New York, he promptly hijacked an American Airlines 727 (Flight 293 from New York City to Chicago).[2] He planned to demand Kajević's release, then fly to Belgrade and crash into Ušće Tower, the Communist Central Committee Building. When he realized that Kajević would not be released, he let the plane's passengers go, retaining only a pilot, a co-pilot, a flight attendant and his own lawyer. He forced the crew to fly from Chicago to JFK Airport in New York City. There, he transferred to a larger plane. Initially hoping to still fly to Belgrade, on the advice of his lawyer he flew to Ireland, which did not have an extradition agreement with the United States. Hoping for political asylum, Kavaja surrendered in Ireland and was returned to America to again face a criminal trial.[1]
Kavaja was in prison from 1979 to 1997 and was to have remained on parole until 2019. He violated parole by returning to Yugoslavia; had he returned to the United States he would have been arrested and returned to jail.[1]
On his return to Yugoslavia, Kavaja formed a military unit for the defence of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. A training camp was established in Piva, Montenegro, where recruits undertook six months training. However his unit was never given permission to be used against the Kosovo Liberation Army.[3]
Nikola Kavaja was arrested on April 1, 2003 during the Operation Sablja following the assassination of Zoran Đinđić.[4] Kavaja was soon released.
Filmmaker Milan Knežević made a documentary about Kavaja called Nikola Kavaja - lovac na Tita ("Nikola Kavaja - Tito's hunter"), which was shown at the 1994 Edinburgh Film Festival.[5]
Kavaja died from a heart attack at his home in Belgrade in 2008.[6]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Stewart, Christopher S., Nikola Kavaja: Interview with an Assassin. http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2055456.ece. 10 December 2006.
- ^ ABC Evening News. June 20, 1979. Abstract from Vanderbilt University Television News Archive, http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=60151.
- ^ http://www.novosti.rs/code/navigate.php?Id=10&status=jedna&vest=132069&datum=2008-11-13
- ^ www.glas-javnosti.rs
- ^ Nikola Kavaja - lovac na Tita (1991)
- ^ Dusan Stojanovic, "Serb who hijacked US plane in 1979 dies", Associated Press, 2008-08-10.
Categories:- People imprisoned on charges of terrorism
- Serbian anti-communists
- Yugoslav people imprisoned abroad
- Serbian people imprisoned abroad
- Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government
- Deaths from myocardial infarction
- 1933 births
- 2008 deaths
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