Serb pensioners battle with gun and axe over woman

BELGRADE, Mar 6 (Reuters) Serb police had to separate two septuagenarians fighting with a gun and an axe in a love feud over a younger woman, local media reported here.

The woman, 52-year-old Zivkica Jankovic, was shot in the leg during the fracas, and more than two dozen police had to be called in to stop the brawl in the southern town of Leskovac yesterday.

Radivoje Sinadinovic, 77, said Jankovic had been his lover but was wooed away by his neighbour Ljubisa Petkovic, 78, who had bragged about the size of his pension.

''We had planned to get married,'' Sinadinovic said. ''But when Ljubisa came to buy plum brandy and boasted of how high his pension was, it went to her head. She left and did not come back.'' Sinadinovic went with a gun to Petkovic's home on Saturday and, finding Jankovic, started to beat her. Petkovic grabbed an axe and in the melee Sinadinovic's gun fired, wounding Jankovic.

Reuters SRS VP0412