Police yesterday arrested several members of an underworld network accused of assassinating Serbia's prime minister, a pro-Western leader who made enemies by pushing for the arrest of mobsters and war crimes suspects.
Zarko Korac, Serbia's deputy prime minister, said that "although several arrests were made, many of the suspects are still in hiding and have gone underground."
A government-imposed state of emergency, which curtailed some civil liberties, took effect yest-erday, a day after snipers killed Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in downtown Belgrade as he stepped out of his armored car on his way to meetings at a government building.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"What more do you need as an admission of guilt than the fact that they went underground?" Korac said. "You can see what merciless assassins they were -- they shot Djindjic from a 300m distance, straight into his heart."
The army's top body, the Su-preme Defense Council, raised the level of combat readiness and instructed the military to assist the police in the search for the assassins.
With flags at half staff yesterday, Serbian lawmakers convened to commemorate Djindjic. Legislators of the ultranationalist Radical Party, among Djindjic's staunchest opponents, did not attend the somber ceremony.
A statement late Wednesday by the Serbian Cabinet blamed Milorad Lukovic, a warlord known as Legija and loyal to former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, and an underworld network known as the "Zemun Clan" after a Belgrade suburb, for organizing the killing. The government claims the group has 200 members and a rap sheet of more than 300 criminal charges.
"Their aim was to trigger fear, lawlessness and chaos in the country," the statement said. "The assassination ... was an attempt by this group to crush the fight against organized crime."
Korac did not specify who was arrested, but indicated Lukovic was not among the suspects in custody.
"Djindjic assassinated by the Zemun Clan," Belgrade newspapers headlined yesterday over photographs of known members of the Serbian underworld.
The more infamous mob leaders include Dejan Milenkovic, known as "Bugsy;" Mile Lukovic, known as "Godfather" and not the same man as warlord Milorad Lukovic; Vladimir Milisavljevic, whose alias is "Idiot;" and Mladjan Micic, nicknamed "Rat."
Police established checkpoints in and around Belgrade early yesterday, and officers armed with assault rifles searched cars and drivers.
There were fears that the volatile Balkan country could plunge into violence in a possible power struggle for Djindjic's successor.
The party of former Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica, Djindjic's political foe, criticized the Cabinet for ordering a state of emergency, calling it an "extreme and potentially hazardous measure" that would add to a "climate of fear and mistrust."
Djindjic had many enemies because of his pro-reformist and Western stands and for his crackdown on organized crime, which is rampant in Serbia and across the Balkans.
He was despised by some for his role in toppling Milosevic in October 2000 and orchestrating his handover to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 2001.
Djindjic outraged hardliners and nationalists by calling for more arrests of top Serb indicted war crimes suspects, such as the world's No. 2 fugitive -- former Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic -- who is believed to be hiding in Serbia.
He was also hated by powerful Serbian crime bosses and warlords allied with Milosevic, after recently declaring an open war on organized crime, rampant corruption and smuggling.
In February, Djindjic appeared to have been targeted in another assassination attempt, when a truck nearly collided with his car.
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