Budapest - A prime suspect in the murder of Romanian handball international Marian Cozma outside a Hungarian nightclub turned himself in towards midnight on Thursday, police reported on Friday morning.

Ivan Sztojka, 27, was interviewed for five hours. He admitted being at the club, but denied having killed or injured anybody and said he had not seen who did commit the crimes.

Lawyer Ivor Drescher told the newspaper Nepszabadsag that he had known his client's family for years and was convinced that Sztojka is not a member of a mafia-like gang, as was widely reported in Hungary.

Sztojka, 27, was the subject of a nationwide manhunt and had a two-million-forint (8,650-dollars) price on his head when he and his lawyer turned up a Veszprem County police station late on Thursday night.

Two other suspects were arrested in Austria on Sunday evening after an international arrest warrant was issued in the wake of the attack outside a nightclub in the Hungarian town of Veszprem before dawn the same day.

Cozma died of stab wounds to the heart and two of his MKB-Veszprem teammates, one Serbian, the other Croatian, were seriously injured during the attack.

The case not only shocked and saddened handball fans across the region. Because of the origin of the suspects, it also increased the tension surrounding the ethnic Roma minority in Hungary.

In the wake of the attack, Roma groups called for the suspects to be punished for what they have done, regardless of their ethnic background.

One of the victims, Serbian player Zarko Sesum, 23, was pronounced fit to leave hospital on Friday morning after undergoing reconstructive surgery for a smashed cheekbone, the director of Veszprem hospital Jeno Racz told the local press.

The 20-year-old Croatian player Ivan Pesic, who lost a kidney after being stabbed in the back while trying to help his teammates, is no longer in intensive care and is doing well, Racz said. (dpa)