SERBIA:Two former Serb paramilitaries and 10 accomplices were found guilty yesterday of the murder in 2003 of prime minister Zoran Djindjic, but supporters of the slain reformist demanded that the hunt continue for the people who ordered the assassination. Daniel McLaughlinreports.
Milorad Ulemek and Zvezdan Jovanovic, ex-members of the Red Berets unit established by former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, each received 40-year jail terms, while 10 co-conspirators were sentenced in Belgrade to between eight and 35 years in prison.
Ulemek was convicted of planning the operation to murder Mr Djindjic, who took power soon after Mr Milosevic was ousted in 2000, and enraged Serbia's powerful nationalists by extraditing him to the UN war crimes court in The Hague the following year.
Jovanovic was found guilty of killing Mr Djindjic with a sniper shot from a tower block as he stepped out of his car to enter government headquarters in central Belgrade.
Both men appeared to smile briefly as sentence was delivered. Ulemek is already serving a 40-year sentence for murdering former Serb president Ivan Stambolic on the orders of Mr Milosevic.
Prosecutors said they would appeal to request that all 12 men - five of whom are on the run and were tried in absentia - receive the maximum 40-year sentence.
Lawyers for the accused said they would appeal to have all the convictions quashed.
Judge Nata Mesarevic said the plot was carried out by former members of the notorious Red Berets and men with allegiance to the so-called Zemun Clan, one of Belgrade's main organised crime groups, with the intention of destabilising Serbia and allowing their ultra-nationalist political allies to return to power.
The death of the charismatic Mr Djindjic dealt a heavy blow to Serbia's liberals and, under the stolid nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, who became premier in 2004, the country has failed to catch its main war crimes suspects and made scant progress towards its stated goal of European Union membership.
"The uncovering of the political motive was impossible because Serbia is now under the rule of Vojislav Kostunica," said a leading liberal politician Cedomir Jovanovic.
"We will not stop until we hear in court who profited from Djindjic's death," he said.
Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, a Belgrade human rights lawyer, added that "the sentences were expected and all evidence presented by the prosecution was flawless. What the trial failed to pinpoint was . . . possible political instigators of the murder."