The head of the largest Serb opposition group was recovering yesterday after a gunman opened fire on him in an attack described by his spokesman as "an attempted assassination".
The attack on Mr Vuk Draskovic, who leads the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) comes in the wake of a series of killings that have shaken Yugoslavia.
Mr Draskovic blamed the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, for the attack. The Belgrade government denied responsibility.
Later Montenegrin police said they had detained the gunmen who shot Mr Draskovic and knew who had ordered the shooting.
Mr Vuk Boskovic, an assistant to the Interior Minister, told Montenegrin state television "we are in possession of the attack weapon and are holding the persons who carried it out, together with those who assisted them, but we also know who ordered this crime."
He said those who carried it out were "the persons who came from the Serbian territory after Vuk Draskovic came to Montenegro."
The opposition leader was shot in his flat at Budva, Montenegro, just before midnight on Thursday and released from hospital yesterday after receiving treatment for two bullet grazes: one to the ear and the other to the head.
An SPO spokesman, Mr Ivan Kovacevic, said Mr Draskovic was shot through the windows of his apartment in the Adriatic resort where he was alone, without bodyguards.
Asked who might be responsible for the killing, he said: "The kind of people who want Draskovic to disappear from the political scene in Yugoslavia." He pointed out that Mr Draskovic was the most powerful opposition figure but he did not directly blame the Milosevic regime.
Mr Draskovic himself directly accused President Milosevic of seeking to kill him.
"I felt two bullets. One made a hole in my ear," Mr Draskovic said, sitting on the sofa where he said he had been sitting when one or more would-be assassins opened fire on Thursday night.
There were two bullet holes in the wall behind him and bloodstains on the floor. He said he fell and then crawled away towards the door and hid behind a column. It was then that he felt another bullet graze his temple.
Asked if he thought Mr Milosevic was to blame, he said: "It is sure they did it and it is also sure that if someone wanted to liquidate me, the government of Serbia had the information beforehand."
He said he had received information a couple of days earlier that his assassination had been ordered, adding that the arrest of his bodyguards two weeks ago had paved the way for the attack.
"It is clear they will attack me again. They will probably attack a lot of other people in Serbia because that is the way they rule," Mr Draskovic said.
The Deputy Serbian Information Minister, Mr Miodrag Popovic, said the government was "certainly not" behind the attack. He said it was up to the police in Montenegro to investigate the attack and then make a statement. The attack comes after a string of assassinations in the Serbian capital. All of these killings were of people linked to the regime, or directly part of it and carried out by professional hit men.
Then on May 31st Mr Goran Zudic, the security adviser and close friend of Montenegrin President, Mr Milo Djukanovic, was shot dead in Podgorica. Some MPs in the pro-western government blamed Belgrade for the killing; Belgrade blamed the CIA. Reactions to the attack on Mr Draskovic have been mixed. Many people point out that it does not fit the mould of the other assassinations. "It is very strange and I can't get to the bottom of it from Belgrade," said Mr Popovic.
However, he said, it may be that someone externally is trying to destabilise Yugoslavia and to assassinate Mr Draskovic.
The attack is not the first time that Mr Draskovic has escaped with his life. On October 3rd he survived a car accident in which three members of his party, including his brother-in-law, were killed.
A public opinion research expert, Mr Srecko Mihailovic, said the SPO's failure to participate in the activity of the opposition had increased citizens' mistrust of all the opposition - but particularly the SPO.