Police investigating the murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando are examining new evidence suggesting she may have been killed by a Serbian hitman in revenge for a NATO air strike on Belgrade in 1999, according to The Sunday Times.
Witnesses reportedly saw a man claim in a Belgrade bar in 2001 that the 1999 killing was a revenge attack, before taking a bow and receiving applause. The tip-off about the alleged confession came from a call to the Crimestoppers hotline.
The development reopens a line of inquiry that was ruled out when Barry George was arrested. George was convicted of murder in 2001, but the verdict was overturned at a retrial last August.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We will look at any new lines of inquiry as it remains an open case and nobody is in prison for the murder."
The Sunday Times quoted a British businessman who witnessed the man's boast: "During the conversation with his friends it turned to what had happened in the UK with Jill Dando. The friends of his actually said, 'Well, this was the man that was involved in that.' He took a bow over that because he claimed he had something to do with it. He stood up and his friends applauded him strenuously."
