Byline: WENDY LEIGH

The police arrived early outside the door of No 3 Ljutice Bogdana in suburban Belgrade. In this affluent area known for its embassies, luxurious villas and the Red Star football stadium, the appearance of 50 officers all armed with assault rifles might have seemed unusual.

But here in the Serbian capital, armed men on both sides of the law are a common sight. As the police forced open the glass doors and stormed into the house early last week they were entering the private world of Serbia's most notorious widow. It is the family home of folk singer Svetlana Raznatovic, universally known by her stage name Ceca, and her late husband, the paramilitary warlord Arkan.

He was shot dead in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental three years ago, and this week she was arrested by police investigating the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic earlier this month. She is accused of sheltering two of the plot's ringleaders. Violence, it would seem, is never far from the occupants of No 3 Ljutice Bogdana.

Inside the imposing, four-storey house police searched for weapons. 'We found machine guns, pistols, ammunition crates with 5,000 rounds, machinegun silencers, many truncheons, handcuffs and 86 unlicensed paramilitary and police items,' said a police source who took part in the raid.

Apart from the impressive arsenal, the house revealed the extraordinarily opulent lifestyle of the gangster and folk music star. In scenes reminiscent of the discovery of Imelda Marcos's 1,220 pairs of shoes in her Philippines palace, police sifted through Ceca's 26ft by 12ft wardrobe, examined her basement 'den' and took the glass lift to the bedrooms on the top floor.

'It's an astonishing house,' the police source admitted. Visitors enter through a glass-doored anteroom, formerly a cafe run by Arkan, which looks on to the widest avenue in the suburb of Dedinge and is guarded by at least eight armed men employed by Ceca. From there, a steel door leads into a tiny botanical garden, Ceca's pride and joy. It is only after guests pass through another steel door that they gain admission to the house itself.

Once inside, the main reception room is dominated by a huge portrait of Arkan, in full military uniform, and whose eyes follow the visitor around.

On one wall of the room, which is scattered with white leather armchairs and couches, is a widescreen television. Much of the furniture is inlaid with gold, and gold ashtrays sit on the coffee tables. The room is heated by a huge wood-burning fire, above which two more pictures of Arkan glare down from the walls.

A door leads to the adjoining dining room, where a mahogany dining table seating ten is laid with crystal and silver.

The parquet flooring in the main room and the dining room is covered with red stars. A spiral staircase leads down to Ceca's private sanctuary, where her wardrobe houses her collection of dresses. She owns more than 100 pairs of shoes, many made from leopardskin and all highheeled and sexy.

She is obsessed by animal skins, with leopardskin-patterned dresses, skirts, trousers and blouses. Among the clothes are familiar designer labels such as Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Versace.

There are jewelled handbags, a watch emblazoned with 12 diamonds and rows of fur coats - fox and, of course, leopardskin.

In fact, Ceca is so enamoured of jungle animals that she and Arkan owned a pet tiger cub, which had the run of the house.

Adjoining Ceca's wardrobe is a large private living room, virtually a replica of the room above. A bulletproof glass lift leads to the upper floors.

The first floor boasts the party room, with grey marble walls and thick, rosecoloured carpets. The two floors above house the sauna and the solarium and are off-limits to all but the most intimate insiders. Very few people have ever gained admission to those floors - certainly not the 40 staff who look after and guard the 30-year-old Ceca.

Behind the house are the garages for her three pound sterling50,000 Ford four-wheel-drives, complete with bulletproof windows.

This bizarre fortress, valued three years ago at pound sterling2 million, was built by Arkan during his years as the most feared gangland boss in Serbia. He was indicted by the UN War Crimes Court in The Hague for atrocities committed during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia from 1991 to 1995, and the way he was able to prosper through crime is indicative of the lawlessness that dominates modern Serbia So far, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in the hunt for the killers of the prime minister. Among them is Milan Sarajlic, the deputy state prosecutor, who admitted receiving more than pound sterling100,000 to block investigations into criminal gangs.

His arrest has proved how far organised crime has corroded the justice system.

Ceca is accused of harbouring Milorad Lukovic, the former head of Serbia's Red Berets police special forces unit. Police believe Lukovic ordered the killing of the prime minister after he refused to maintain political protection for Lukovic's crime empire in Belgrade. Ceca is also accused of providing financial assistance to the family of another mobster from the same gang, Degan 'Bugsy' Milenkovic.

Drugs, racketeering and violence dominate life in today's Belgrade, where massive leather-clad thugs haunt the lobbies of the plushest hotels, often accompanied by nubile doe-eyed call girls.

Arkan was ideally suited to this world.

He had a privileged start in life, with a father who was a senior officer in the Yugoslav air force and with links to Tito.

But by the time he was 14 he was already involved in petty crime. By the Eighties, he had 40 aliases, three passports, was wanted by Interpol and had been arrested for armed robbery.

None of that troubled the Yugoslav authorities, whose secret police appointed him as their hitman. When he settled in Belgrade in the mid-Eighties he moved into what was then a small house at No 3 Ljutice Bogdana which he inherited from his father. As his income from extortion, drugs and crime grew, he built three more floors on the house - with relatively few windows, to make it easier to defend.

When war splintered Yugoslavia, Arkan formed a close alliance with President Slobodan Milosevic, and his brutal paramilitary troops, the Tigers, slaughtered thousands of non-Serbs.

Ceca, however, came from a very different background. She was born a Serbian peasant in the village of Zitoradja, 300 kilometres south of Belgrade. The daughter of a schoolteacher and a farmer, she was discovered at 14 while singing at a family wedding and offered the chance to record an album. A string of hits followed, and by 1993 she was Serbia's most popular folk singer. In her private life she showed a preference for the sort of men who have come to dominate the former Yugoslavia: gangsters. One of her earliest liaisons was with a Belgrade Mafia leader, Sherban, who subsequently disappeared and was presumed murdered by the jealous Arkan, whom Ceca met in October 1993 at a concert for Serbian troops.

The moment she set eyes on Arkan, she was determined to have him. The twicemarried gangster, who was twice her age, admitted: 'She came after me.'

A close friend of hers explains: 'Ceca was never like other women. She was wild and wanton, ambitious and powerhungry. She and Arkan were the perfect match.' They married in February, 1995 in a glittering ceremony that was shown live on Yugoslav television.

Although Arkan already had five children, with whom, it is said, Ceca did not get on, they soon had children of their own - Vjelko, now six, and Anastasia, now five. Ceca also acquired breast implants, causing her husband to enthuse: 'She could be Miss Yugoslavia.' Arkan, keen as ever to extend his criminal influence in the political world, even talked of her standing for president. But when asked about the idea, she tossed her luxuriant black mane and, in an answer which said a lot about the criminal culture in Serbia, said: 'All our presidents end up in the International Court in The Hague.

I don't need that.' Then, on January 15, 2000, Arkan was murdered. Ceca was with him when he was shot. A few days later, amid a mob of thousands of mourners, she stood impassively at his funeral, dressed from head to foot in black, her eyes hidden by a veil. She did not cry, but went into seclusion for a year. At the time she described her dead husband as the love of her life, adding: 'Arkan made me into a princess.' She has now resumed her singing career but has vowed never to marry again, although last month she was linked with Yugoslav basketball star Predrag Stojakovic, who plays in America for the Sacramento Kings.

Slowly she has begun to take on the business mantle of her dead husband and surrounds herself with many of Arkan's former comrades in her fortress-like home.

She inherited the football club Obilic Belgrade, which Arkan bought in 1995, and even travelled to Britain with the team when they played Hull City in 2001.

But has she also taken on her husband's criminal activities? The police who raided her home certainly seem to think so.

Ceca may not be bound for The Hague, but she has now lost her freedom.

Imprisoned in a secret location, she faces an uncertain future. But those who know her well predict she will soon return to her luxurious fortress.

A close friend who spoke to her just hours before her arrest said: 'Although Ceca knew she was about to be arrested, she was selfconfident, brave and cool. It can't be easy for her right now, but she is strong. After all, she was married to a soldier. She will survive.'

COPYRIGHT 2003 Solo Syndication Limited

This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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