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Here is the report from The Tennessean:

War stress plagued assailant

By JOHN SHIFFMAN

Staff Writer

And DONALD W. PINE

SLAVONSKI BROD, Croatia — The 29-year-old man accused of triggering Wednesday's fatal bus crash in Manchester, Tenn., suffered from mental problems rooted in his military service in the war-torn country in the 1990s, friends and government officials said yesterday.

All agreed that Damir ''Dado'' Igric suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome — a problem suffered by many war veterans, but which Igric refused to treat because he thought it would hurt his chances to get a visa to the United States, one friend said.

"If Dado was the one who did this, it was as a result of not getting his stress treated. This country forgot its soldiers after the war,'' said Kornelije Mikovic, 22, whose brother was Igric's best friend in the military. The brother later committed suicide.

"Hopefully, it will not turn out to be him,'' Mikovic said, echoing the sentiment of other friends in this working-class city of 40,000.

While Croatian and U.S. officials were still exchanging fingerprints yesterday, they continued to say that they believed Igric was the assailant who slit a Greyhound bus driver's neck with a box cutter early Wednesday, forcing the bus across Interstate 24 about 60 miles southeast of Nashville, killing six and wounding dozens.

"We are 99.9% sure it's him,'' said Bardec Zinka, spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Interior. ''We've visited with the family. We've compared the photos. We're just working with your FBI to be 100% sure.''

A U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dreyden, said Igric's passport, found at the accident scene, has been authenticated. Federal and state officials restated their belief yesterday that Igric, who died instantly in the crash, was not a terrorist.

"We have absolutely no evidence to indicate this was anything but the act of a lone individual,'' FBI Special Agent Scott Nowinski said.

It was not clear where Igric was heading or why. He boarded the Orlando, Fla.-bound bus in Chicago.

Nor was it clear what may have sparked his attack on the driver. He had asked another passenger and a relief driver to change seats with him so he could sit behind the driver. When they declined, witnesses said, Igric approached the driver and slashed his neck with a box cutter.

Nowinski said the FBI is pursuing leads in the case in several cities, trying to trace Igric's steps in the United States and his life in Croatia. The agent would not elaborate.

In Croatia yesterday, the state-run news agency HINA reported that Igric's mother heard the news of her son's death, and his role in the crash, on the radio. The woman collapsed, was taken to a hospital, and later released.

"Nobody bothered to go and tell her what had happened to her son,'' said Fgodor Pologac, the Washington-based correspondent for the news agency.

Zinka, the Interior Ministry spokeswoman, told The Tennessean that Igric had faced a drug and a gun charge at one time but that the matter had never been resolved. Igric had been accused of possessing an unlicensed firearm, a crime that she said is not unusual in that region of the country.

She said national police considered Igric ''a drug dealer,'' but added that his mental troubles probably caused the accident.

"You never know what happens inside someone's head,'' she said.

Tennessee Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Levy said last night that initial testing showed Igric was not under the influence of the marijuana or cocaine, and added that more sophisticated testing is expected.

While the friends in Croatia agreed with officials' accounts that Igric suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of his service in the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s, they said Croatian authorities have exaggerated his arrests for drug and gun possession.

Friends in the working-class neighborhood where Igric grew up also said yesterday they remained optimistic that U.S. authorities have made a mistake — that Igric is not the man who attacked the bus driver.

I could never think of his doing such a thing,'' said Nada Alfeldi, a close friend of his mother who lives in the same apartment building as Igric's family.

Igric, a Christian, was born on Sept. 21, 1972, in Slavonski Brod, just across the Saba River from the Bosnian border, not far from towns gutted during the ethnic cleansing of the mid-1990s.

His parents divorced when he was 2 years old. His father was an alcoholic, and Igric did not see him much, according to Kornelije Mikovic. Igric considered his stepfather his true father, friends said.

Igric grew tall, 6-foot-1, and graduated from a vocational school in 1990 as a locksmith. He joined the Yugoslav Army after graduation but, when Bosnia invaded his homeland, he left to join the Croatian Army in July 1991. During the war, he served with his childhood friend Robert Mikovic, the older brother of Kornelije Mikovic. The two friends saw some of the war's bloodiest fighting.

Igric was discharged in January 1993, officials said. While his friend sought repeated treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome, Igric did not. He believed he might be denied a foreign visa if he had a medical history of mental problems.

"I think he had the same problem as my brother and other veterans,'' Kornelijie Mikovic said. ''I think he didn't treat the (stress) because he wanted a better life. He thought he would be able to cope with it and seek a better life.''

After the war, Igric worked at several cafés as a bartender, then found a job on a Miami-based cruise ship, Mikovic said, and spent several years on various ships. U.S. officials yesterday confirmed that Igric entered the United States at least five times between 1993 and 1999 using a special visa for cruise-ship workers.

Igric began as a waiter, but studied to become a wine steward, Mikovic said.

On Nov. 10, 1998, Igric's best friend from the war, Robert Mikovic, committed suicide. Igric became deeply depressed, according to friends, and left Croatia within months for the United States.

In New York, Igric kept in touch with the family every few weeks, calling from Queens, where he lived in a variety of homes, according to his stepbrother, Daniel Spajic. But he never gave family members an address or telephone, he said.

"He would always call us,'' the stepbrother said.

This report was compiled by staff writer John Shiffman in Nashville and Tennessean correspondent Donald W. Pine in Croatia.

Staff writers Brad Schrade, Laura Frank and Monica Whitaker also contributed.

I believe this about as much as the reports that the plane from Israel to Russia was shot down by a "wayward" missle, that TWA 800 was NOT shot down by a missile that everyone saw, that the Anthrax case in Florida is isolated (just the time of year for allaergies and anthrax)or that the Ebola virus now spreading through the Afghan refugee camps is nothing unusual.