Serbian police captured a fugitive member of a Belgrade crime gang today and accused him of the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Ddjindjic.
A spokesman said Aleksandar Simovic had been on the run since the March 12, 2003, killing of Serbia's pro-western prime minister in front of his office in central Belgrade.
Simovic was arrested in the capital. He was already on trial in absentia along with 12 others accused of the murder. Five other men listed on the indictment are on the run.
Simovic's arrest came two days after another member of the gang accused of plotting the murder began testifying in Belgrade's organised crime court about how the assassination was planned and carried out. Prosecutors say the plot to kill Djindjic was hatched by former special police commander Milorad "Legija" Ulemek, along with the head of the so-called Zemun crime gang Dusan Spasojevic.
Spasojevic was killed in a police shootout shortly after the assassination. Ulemek and alleged triggerman Zvezdan Jovanovic, a former officer in his squad, are the main accused in the trial, which began nine months after the death of Djindjic. In June, key witness Zoran 'Vuk' Vukojevic was found tortured and shot.
Some Serbian media reported that Simovic's DNA was found on the corpse, saying he had been in the country all the time. Djindjic was key in toppling ex-strongman Slobodan Milosevic and extraditing him to the Hague war crimes tribunal in 2001.