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BELGRADE: A notorious paramilitary leader suspected of masterminding the assassination of Serbia's prime minister last year has surrendered to police. Milorad Lukovic, known by his nickname "Legija", surrendered in Belgrade on Sunday night, Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said. He had been on the run since March 12, 2003, when reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic was gunned down by a sniper in front of his Belgrade government headquarters. Lukovic, who led a feared paramilitary unit loyal to then president Slobodan Milosevic during the 1990s wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, is the prime suspect in the slaying. He has been...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Two men wanted in connection with the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic have been arrested in Rotterdam, the Dutch public prosecutor's spokesman says. Ninoslav Konstantinovic and his brother, Sladjan Konstantinovic, were arrested on Saturday afternoon, an official said. "The national police investigation branch arrested at the start of the afternoon two suspects of the murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement. "The brothers arrested on Saturday have probably been staying in the Netherlands for several months...Both suspects have been arrested by a special team in Rotterdam." "The...

BENIDORM, Spain (Reuters) - Police may have missed a chance to thwart the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic due to poor cooperation in tracking stolen blank passports, according to the head of Interpol. Secretary General Ronald Noble said police now knew that Milorad Ulemek, a key suspect in the March 12 shooting in Belgrade, had obtained one of 100 blank Croatian passports stolen from that country's consulate in Mostar, Bosnia, in 1999. Ulemek, a former paramilitary and gang leader also known as Milorad Lukovic or by the nickname "Legija," used the passport to travel extensively through Switzerland, Austria,...

Serbian police have arrested a senior special police officer on suspicion of assassinating Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Mr Djindjic's successor as prime minister, Zoran Zivkovic, said the man was a deputy commander of the Unit for Special Operations (JSO), Zvezdan Jovanovic, aged 38. "Police have identified the person who, there are good grounds to suspect, fired at late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic," he told a news conference. "He was arrested yesterday and has been detained for further investigation." Mr Djindjic was killed by a sniper's bullet outside government buildings in Belgrade on 12 March. Just hours after the killing,...

Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 12:44 a.m. Pacific Serbian assassination tied to Western pressure By Steven Erlanger--- The New York Times BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — The sniper assassination last week of Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian prime minister so highly praised by Western leaders, is a reminder that nation building can easily be derailed, especially when outside nations make heavy political demands on fragile post-tyrannical states. In some ways, many Serbs say, the West squeezed Djindjic to death in a too-tight embrace of specific demands for reform and extradition of war criminals, and tied the delivery of desperately needed foreign aid to...

Thursday, March 13, 2003 Snipers assassinate Serb prime minister By Free Press news services BELGRADE -- Snipers lurking near government headquarters yesterday ambushed and assassinated Serbia's prime minister, a pro-western leader who helped topple Slobodan Milosevic and declared war on organized crime. The slaying of Zoran Djindjic at midday in downtown Belgrade prompted the government to impose a nationwide state of emergency amid fears the volatile Balkan country could plunge into violence in a power struggle for his successor. Djindjic, 50, died in hospital after being shot in the abdomen and back, said Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister. It...

BELGRADE, Serbia - Montenegro, March 13 (UPI) -- The Serbian government Thursday is preparing to arrest the ex-head of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's secret police for the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Milorad Lukovic, the former commander of Milosevic's police special operations unit, or JSO, and Dusan Spasojevic, another JSO member, headed the gang, the government said in a statement Wednesday. It said Djindjic's assassination was an attempt by the gang to cause chaos, lawlessness and fear in the country. Djindjic, 50, was struck by bullets fired from a high-powered rifle perched in a nearby government building...

HOW THE SAS WAS GOING TO ASSASSINATE MILOSEVIC British security agents plotted to assassinate Yugoslavia's President, Slobodan Milosevic, in the early Nineties using an SAS hit squad, the intelligence historian Stephen Dorrill claims. Mr Dorrill says that a secret MI6 file explored three options in which the Serbian leader could be killed during the Bosnian war. His book quotes claims by a former MI6 officer, who worked in the Balkans in the early Nineties, that an ambitious colleague who was responsible for developing and targeting operations in the Balkans had produced the file. "It was approximately two pages long, and...

A former commander of a special police unit led the group which assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the government alleges. In a statement the government said the commander, Milorad Lukovic who is better known as Legija, was among 20 suspects. The pro-reform, pro-Western leader was shot in the stomach and in the back outside government offices in Belgrade at about 1300 local time (1200 GMT), and died of his wounds in hospital. Acting Serbian President Natasa Micic has declared a state of emergency under which some civil rights can be curtailed and the army takes over police duties. "The...

FOR the first time in months, the Monument Café had put tables outdoors in the sun for the gathering lunch crowd. Waiters doled out menus and mineral water. No one noticed when, at 12.35pm, the barrel of a high-powered rifle peeked out from the second-floor window of a dingy, half-empty building next door. Less than 200 metres away, across an empty park, Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister, and his security men left a side door of the government headquarters on Nemanjina Boulevard. One of the café’s waiters heard two or three soft cracks, but hardly anyone else noticed. The...

In memorial Zoran Djindjic (1952-2003) Belgrade, March 12, 2003 - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was shot at 12.25 local time in front of the Serbian Government Building. He died at 13.30 in the Emergency Ward of the Serbian Clinic Centre in Belgrade. Sign the condolence register at www.serbia-today.com Inapropiate remarks will be removed!

Serbian Prime Minister Is Assassinated Wednesday March 12, 2003 5:20 PM BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Serbia's prime minister - who spearheaded the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 - was assassinated Wednesday by gunmen who ambushed him outside government headquarters. Zoran Djindjic, 50, died of his wounds in a Belgrade hospital after being shot in the abdomen and back, said Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister. Police sources told The Associated Press that snipers firing from a building across from the government headquarters shot Djindjic as he left his car. A high-power bullet left a dent...

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BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro, March 12 — Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 - was assassinated Wednesday by gunmen who ambushed him outside the government complex, police sources said. “He’s dead,” a source from his Democratic Party told Reuters. ‘If someone thinks the law and the reforms can be stopped by eliminating me, then that is a huge delusion.’ — ZORAN DJINDJIC Serbian prime minister DJINDJIC, 50, was shot in the chest by two large caliber sniper bullets fired from a distance, a police source told Reuters...