Assassination of Zoran Đinđić

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Position of Zoran Đinđić and the sniper at the moment of assassination

The assassination of Zoran Đinđić, the Prime Minister of Serbia, took place on Wednesday, March 12, 2003, in Belgrade, Serbia.

1 Background
2 Details
3 International reactions
4 Arrests and trial
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Background

Đinđić

The assassination of Đinđić was preceded by several unsuccessful attempts on his life. Most notable was in February 2003, in which a truck driven by Dejan Milenković called Bagzi, a known member of the criminal Zemun Clan, tried to force the Prime Minister's car off the highway in New Belgrade. Đinđić escaped injury only due to the outstanding reaction of his driver and his security detail. Milenković was arrested, but released from custody after only a few days. The investigative court explained this decision by stated that Milenković was a salesmen whose business suffered from his absence.

Đinđić had made many enemies for his pro-Western stance, reformist economic policies, arresting Slobodan Milošević and relinquishing him to the ICTY, and for clamping down on organized crime. The murder was allegedly organized by Milorad Ulemek, also known as Legija. Ulemek is an ex-Commander of the special police unit founded by Milosević's secret service during the nineties, who ordered Zvezdan Jovanović to carry out the assassination. Legija was connected to the powerful Zemun clan of the Serbian mafia, and had been recently sentenced to 40 years in jail for other offences that included murder and attempted murder.

[edit] Details

At 12:25 Central European Time, Đinđić was fatally wounded by gunshot while walking to the main Serbian government building.

According to the official government statement, Đinđić was not conscious and did not have a pulse upon arriving at the emergency ward. ^[1] His bodyguard Milan Veruović was also seriously wounded in the stomach by another shot.

Đinđić's assassin, police specialist Zvezdan Jovanović (also known as Zveki), fired the bullets from the window of a building approximately 180 meters away, using a sniper version of the Heckler & Koch G3 battle rifle.^[2] Jovanović was born in 1965 in Peć, Kosovo. He had been a member of the JSO, or the Red Berets, as people called them, and held the police rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Jovanović was active in the series of Yugoslav wars in the 1990s and stated he killed Đinđić because he saw him as a traitor to Serbia.

Institute for Photogrammetry from where Đinđić was shot

[edit] International reactions

Russia's Foreign Ministry headed by Igor Ivanov said Moscow was "outraged" at the crime.
The White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the U.S. president George W. Bush "expresses his condolences to the people of Serbia."
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw offered his condolences to Djindjic's family and said he was "deeply shocked" by the killing.
EU President Romano Prodi released a statement saying the European Commission "stands by Serbia's side and it will continue to do so in the future."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that Djindjic "had a lot to do with the return of Serbia into the community of European democracies. After years of dictatorship and of war, he was the carrier of hope for the people in his country..."
The Croatian president Stjepan Mesić described the shooting by two suspected snipers as "an act of madness."^[3]

[edit] Arrests and trial

Aleksandar Simović, one of the co-conspirators, was arrested in Belgrade on November 23, 2006. Two other suspects with Zemun connections, Dušan Spasojević and Mile Luković, were killed by police during an arrest attempt on March 27, 2003.^[4]

On 23 May 2007 the Belgrade Special Court for Organised Crime found Simović and eleven other men - Milorad Ulemek, Zvezdan Jovanović, Dejan Milenković, Vladimir Milisavljević Budala, Sretko Kalinić, Ninoslav Konstantinović, Milan Jurišić, Dušan Krsmanović, Željko Tojaga, Saša Pejaković and Branislav Bezarević - guilty of arranging the murder of Zoran Đinđić.