BALKANS: Organised Crime Behind the Assassination of Former PM

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Nov 24 2006 (IPS) - The single inside witness from the organised crime group accused of killing reform-oriented former prime minister Zoran Djindjic has finally confirmed the indictment and what was long believed – it was the Serbian mafia that committed the crime.

“The aim of the assassination was to topple the government and to bring the (ultranationalist) Serbian Radical Party to power,” witness Dejan Milenkovic told Serbian court in his two-day testimony that ended Friday.

“They came to the idea some time at the beginning of February 2003, because Djindjic said in public that organised crime will have to go from the scene,” Milenkovic said. He was a driver for the clan, the name of the crime group. It was named after Zemun, a Belgrade neighbourhood the group lived in.

“This was the first political crime the Clan carried out,” he added. The Clan later carried out dozens of killings of other criminals, the witness said.

Milenkovic was promised acquittal if he revealed all that led to the assassination.

The first Serbian non-communist prime minister Zoran Djindjic was killed on March 12, 2003 in front of the government building in Belgrade.

In a matter of days, most members of the Zemun Clan were put behind bars. The assassination came only two days before a planned action to arrest heads of the clan.

The man accused of pulling the trigger, Zvezdan Jovanovic, was quickly taken in custody, but Milorad Ulemek, believed to be the mastermind of the crime, surrendered to the authorities only in 2004. The two are standing trial for the assassination, but deny any involvement.

Dusan Spasojevic was killed in police action in late March 2003, while Milenkovic, the witness who told the story over the past two days, fled to Greece. He surrendered to local police there and was transferred to Serbia last year.

“It is well known that most nations have some kind of mafia of their own,” international law expert Vojin Dimitrijevic told IPS. “But the assassination of Djindjic and the trial against the main culprits confirm that here in Serbia, the mafia had a state of its own.”

Dimitrijevic, like many analysts, pointed to the fact that Milorad Ulemek, the first accused in the trial, headed the secret Special Police Units (JSO) created under former leader Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. The JSO and its widespread network were involved in many illegal activities, which included abductions of wealthy people, drugs smuggling, and execution of members of competing criminal groups.

‘The unit’ as it was known spread terror among non-Serbs in the battlefields of Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo at the time. It was still not dismantled in 2000 when Milosevic fell from power in a popular uprising masterminded by Djindjic.

“Djindjic wanted to tackle the wasps’ nest and paid with his life,” the first non-communist foreign minister Goran Svilanovic told IPS. “The remnants of Milosevic’s era could not easily be removed from the scene, and they proved to be stronger than the state.”

In his testimony in this trial so far, Ulemek has admitted that ‘the unit’ had the blessing of top state officials in the 1990s to organise drugs smuggling, its distribution and sale “in order to wage war against enemies of Serbia – the Western countries, Croats, Kosovars and many others.” His closest associate was Dusan Spasojevic.

Both Dejan Milenkovic, in the two-day testimony, and Ulemek in his previous appearances before the same panel of judges, listed dozens of names of top police officials, prosecutors and judges who were on the payroll of the Zemun Clan for years.

Milenkovic additionally spoke of expensive gifts such as cars and apartments provided to law enforcement officials who helped the Clan. He also revealed names of many of Djindjic’s associates who were to be killed, Svilanovic among them.

“However, in the past months we see the effort of the defence and part of media to turn this trial into the typical ‘patriotism-non-patriotism’ item,” lawyer Rajko Danilovic told IPS. His comment came after Milenkovic’s revelation that the aim of the Clan was to bring the ultranationalist Radical party to power.

“They (Ulemek and Spasojevic) believed that the Radicals would provide better surrounding for their uninterrupted activities,” Milenkovic said at the witness stand.

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) remains the strongest opposition party in Serbia, where the society is deeply split over the recent history and wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia that took more than 100,000 lives. Most of the victims were non-Serbs.

SRS was the most important ally of Milosevic in the wars in the 1990s. Its leaders deny any crimes were committed against non-Serbs in the warfare, as the conflict was only “the effort to protect Serbs living outside Serbia.” A part of nationalist Serbian media have created an atmosphere in the public that the trial against assassins of Djindjic is a “conspiracy against true patriots.”

Following Milenkovic’s testimony, they took to a smear campaign against the institution of an associate witness for prosecution, a practice introduced in Serbia only recently.

“The associate witness only supports what the prosecution has already established and represents a basic institution for the battle against organised crime which has only began in Serbia,” crime analyst Dobrivoje Radovanovic told IPS.

“This process is based on much firmer evidence than a pure story by an associate witness,” he said.