Serbia detains 19 fans upon return from Italy

Police detained 19 football fans upon their return from Italy after clashes between Serbian fans and Italian police that forced the cancellation of a Euro 2012 qualifying match, a minister said Thursday.

“So far, 529 football fans returned to the country and 169 of them had previous police records,” Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told B92 radio.

Nineteen of those fans had been detained, Dacic said, adding that they were to be taken before an investigative judge.

Dacic promised a thorough police probe into the incidents, urging judicial authorities to speed up their actions against suspected hooligans.

Local media reported that the buses carrying Serbian fans from Italy had been checked for more than five hours on entering Serbia.

Serbia’s National Security Council, the top security body, was directly supervising the operation, state-television RTS reported.

Serbia and Italy have blamed each other for security failures to prevent the riots before and during the match in northern Italian town Genoa that was aborted Tuesday after just six minutes due to Serbian fans throwing flares onto the pitch and at rival Italy supporters.

Police in Italy made 17 arrests and 16 people were hospitalised after the clashes in Genoa, in Northern Italy. The injured included two policemen.

UEFA said it had ordered a thorough disciplinary investigation into “serious” crowd trouble that forced the Euro 2012 qualifier between Italy and Serbia to be aborted.