Vandals who authorities said belonged to a sect of Satanists desecrated about 30 graves at a Serbian Orthodox cemetery in central Serbia, the Glas Javnosti daily reported today.
Gravestones and crosses as well as several graveside statues were smashed and uprooted before dawn yesterday at the cemetery in Kragujevac, a town 90km south-east of Belgrade, the newspaper said.
The crosses were dug out and left scattered near the graves or stuck into the ground upside down in what investigative judge Zoran Arsenijevic told reporters was an apparent “Satanic ritual.”
“We also discovered Satanic symbols and signs painted all over the place,” the newspaper quoted Mr Arsenijevic as saying.
The police said an “intense investigation” had been launched.
It was the second incident of vandalism attributed to Satanism this month at the Kragujevac cemetery.