POLITICS-SERBIA&MONTENEGRO: Arrest Snaps Links with Past

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 26 2003 (IPS) - The Serbian police have scored a major success in arresting the prime suspect in the assassination of late prime minister Zoran Djindjic.

The police have now disbanded the Special Operations Unit (JSO) suspected of involvement in the killing along with leaders of organised crime.

Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic announced Tuesday that JSO deputy commander Zvezdan Jovanovic (38) was the man who shot Djindjic March 12.

"Jovanovic was arrested Monday," Zivkovic said. "The commander of JSO, Dusan Maricic, was relieved of his duties due to his connections with the Zemun Clan." The commander is also in custody.

"This is a major breakthrough and the highest achievement of the government so far," says analyst Dejan Anastasijevic. "Besides solving the crime, the authorities should be able now to dismantle the darkest remnants of the regime of (former president) Slobodan Milosevic that tried to destabilise the country."

Among the members of the Zemun Clan, a suspected ring of organised crime, was former JSO commander Milorad "Legija" Lukovic, who had been suspected in the murder from the start.

Lukovic left the post after Milosevic fell from power in 2000. He joined the Zemun Clan of his wartime friends and ordinary criminals.

The Heckler & Koch sniper rifle used by Jovanovic was found in New Belgrade suburb Tuesday. Forensic experts have confirmed that the bullet that killed Djindjic was fired from this gun, the police said Tuesday.

The decision to disband the JSO was announced later Tuesday.

The swift police action came after Serbian authorities declared a state of emergency immediately after the reform-minded Djindjic was killed. More than 3,000 people were arrested in the biggest manhunt in modern Serbian history. More than a thousand are still in custody.

Among those arrested is deputy state prosecutor Milan Sarajlic who admitted to being on the payroll of the organised crime group for years.

"Sarajlic admitted lobbying among the judiciary to drop criminal charges against the Clan, thus impeding the investigations and the efficiency of the judiciary," the police said.

Hundreds of charges filed by the police against leaders of organised crime were pushed aside in recent years.

"The developments after Djindjic’s death have shown the true picture of the criminalised state even after Milosevic," says Natasa Kandic, head of Humanitarian Law Centre, a non-governmental organisation in Belgrade.

"The new government was not able to fight that heritage and Djindjic was killed," she says. "We have yet to see if the government will be able to complete what it has begun."

More than 200,000 people died in wars in former Yugoslavia under Milosevic. One of his tools was the JSO, the notorious operational force involved in war crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The JSO comprised former criminals or just adventurers under the patronage of interested officials.

The JSO was legalised and incorporated within the Serbian police only in 1996, after the wars in Croatia and Bosnia ended.

"They had carte blanche for killing and looting for years," analyst Filip Svarm told IPS. "The new government was not able to change that overnight, and paid a high price."

A film on the JSO was shown during the trial against Milosevic at The Hague last month. The film showed its founder Frenki Simatovic explaining at a celebration in 1997 how and why it was formed. Milosevic attended the celebration.

"This had to be a secret unit due to the circumstances surrounding us," Simatovic was shown as saying. "The unit was established on May 4, 1991. We worked in total secrecy, but protected the national interest of Serbs. We fought at more than 150 locations and from the core of several hundred grew into a force of 5,000 soldiers,"

Dismantling the "heart of the darkness" of Milosevic’s era is crucial to Serbia now, says Svarm. "The time has come to explain even to the most suspicious Serbs that ‘the national interest of Serbs’ was a smokescreen for war crime and organised crime. It’s wake up time."