Croatian fugitive who shot wife fourteen times let off after he won asylum in UK and escaped extradition using ‘right to family life’

A FATHER of two who shot his wife 14 times as she died hanging from a noose has got off — because he stayed on the run in Britain for 19 years.

Branco Loncar, 59, was told last week that he did not have to serve any prison time in his native Croatia despite fleeing justice.

Loncar claims he “accidentally” fired into wife ­Mirjana’s body after she hanged herself in 1994.

He was cleared of murder but after he arrived in the UK with his two sons in 1999 he was convicted of attempted murder in his absence.

Now a Croatian judge says his unserved four-year jail term has been wiped out by a 15-year statute of limitations.

Loncar, pictured, won asylum by saying that as a native Serb he faced persecution in Croatia.

He has been in Britain on benefits ever since, picking up a caution for theft and conviction for assault.

In 2015, London’s High Court quashed a Croatian attempt to extradite him, ruling he had a “right to family life”. Court papers said of his wife’s death: “After a quarrel, she went out, stood on a ladder, took a rope and indicated she intended to kill herself.

“As the noose tightened around her neck and rendered her unconscious, the defendant fired a number of bullets into her body.

“The cause of death was strangulation but was accelerated by the injuries inflicted from the defendant’s gun.”

At his housing association flat in Islington, North London, Loncar refused to comment.

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